ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

HOME DEPARTMENT

The Secretary of State was asked-

Counter-terrorism

David Heathcoat-Amory: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's efforts to counter Islamic extremism.

Tony Baldry: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy.

Alan Johnson: Contest is a world-leading counter-terrorism strategy that endeavours to meet the serious threat this country faces from international terrorism. I have today published the first annual report setting out progress against the objectives in the strategy. Since 11 September 2001, 230 people have been convicted of a terrorism-related offence and more than a dozen terrorist plots have been disrupted. The Prevent strand of Contest is aimed at addressing the causes of terrorism by challenging the ideology of violent extremists, supporting vulnerable individuals and building community resilience.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Does the Secretary of State accept that Islamism is a threat because of its refusal to accept the separation of religion and the state, its social intolerance, particularly as regards the status of women, and its attempted subversion of moderate Islam? If he does, will he undertake not to allow the introduction of sharia law into this country in any form?

Alan Johnson: First I should say that the threat comes from violent extremism. There are people with all kinds of views with which we may disagree, but it is when those views turn into violent extremism that counter-terrorism kicks in and those views become unacceptable. On sharia law, I should say that the law of this country is absolutely paramount. Where sharia law has been introduced in some small experiments in local communities it does not, in any way, subvert or detract from the law of this country.

Tony Baldry: Does the Home Secretary agree that we have to work with the Muslim community? In Banbury, the Thames Valley police force consciously seeks to recruit Muslim men and women as special constables, because when the Muslim community has people that it knows working with the police force, it is more likely to talk to them about things that are causing it concern. We therefore need to work with the Muslim community, as well as being suspicious of it on occasion.

Alan Johnson: I agree completely with the hon. Gentleman. Not only in Banbury but elsewhere, the police and the local communities are working to break down these barriers, and part of that involves working with the Muslim community-indeed, the Prevent strand of our counter-terrorism strategy has about 1,000 projects, where work is being undertaken with 40,000 people in various communities. This is something that politicians and chief constables cannot do from on high; it must be tackled in the community and, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, in part by recruiting people from the Muslim community into the police and other authorities.

Diane Abbott: Does the Home Secretary agree that if by "Islamism" one means people who support the religion of Islam, that is not, in itself, a threat? However, subversive and criminal activity is to be found among some members of the Muslim community. The danger of trying to tar the entire Muslim community with the same brush is that that undermines our efforts to engage with the community, and to fight terrorism and crime.

Alan Johnson: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The only way in which we will succeed in this area is by demonstrating that the vast majority of Muslims just do not buy into the rhetoric of the ideologues and those promoting violence and division. That is the measure of success. It is essential that we in no way give the impression that our counter-terrorism policy is anti-Muslim, because it is not; it is very much pro-Muslim and pro the vast majority of the Muslim community, who believe in peace, justice and freedom.

David Winnick: Is it not absolutely essential, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, to make the greatest distinction between the overwhelming majority of Muslims, who, like ourselves, totally oppose and detest terrorism, and the very few religious fanatics who distort their religion and glory in death? There is absolutely no link between those two groups, and we should never try to pretend, as some do, that Muslims are any more in favour of terrorism than adherents of any other religion.

Alan Johnson: Again, I agree with my hon. Friend, who has made an important contribution to these issues while serving on the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The only point that I should make here-this reinforces the one that he has made-is that giving people in Muslim communities, particularly younger Muslims, the arguments and empowering them so that they can try to argue back against what are sometimes very forceful arguments coming from much older people in their community must be an important part of our counter-terrorism strategy. That is why Prevent is the crucial strand that it is.

Crispin Blunt: In the light of the Home Secretary's efforts to separate Islamic issues from terrorism, I wonder whether he has noted the following written evidence to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government's inquiry into the Prevent arm of the counter-terrorism strategy:
	"Inconsistent and generalised language or loose terms weaken public confidence and hamper the debate around Prevent. In addition and more specifically, they also provide opportunities for Muslim Rejectionists at the grassroots."
	Given that countering Islamic extremism is linked to, but is not the same as, a counter-terrorism strategy, does grouping these issues today not illustrate the point being made to the Select Committee?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman talks about grouping these issues, and I think it would be strange if we had a counter-terrorism strategy that did not seek to prevent people from getting involved in terrorism in the first place, just as it would be strange to have a policy on drugs that did not try to prevent youngsters from getting involved in drugs, or to have a policy on knives, guns and gangs that did not have a strand that aimed to prevent people from getting involved in the first place. We have to be very careful about the terminology-that is the hon. Gentleman's point-but we also have to be careful to realise that there are those who are opposed to Prevent because they are opposed to any voice of reason and to our trying to help vulnerable youngsters, in particular, to argue back against those who seek to persuade them down the route of violence. We must recognise that those people are against our strategy-not our Prevent strategy but against our whole Contest counter-terrorism strategy. We have to be aware of the devices they will use to try to suggest, for instance, that Prevent is about spying when it patently is not.

Dogs (Crime)

Andrew Robathan: What recent estimate he has made of the incidence of the use of dogs in crime.

Meg Hillier: The data are not collected centrally but we are aware of the growing concerns about the use of dangerous dogs to harass and intimidate people. This has prompted the Government to introduce the new gang injunction power under the Policing and Crime Act 2009 and to launch a public consultation on managing and controlling dangerous dogs.

Andrew Robathan: Let me get this right: the Home Secretary announces, for a headline in the pre-election period, that he will force all dog owners to take out insurance on their chihuahuas, or whatever their dog might be, but then the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says that is absolutely ludicrous because it will penalise all responsible dog owners and it will have no effect on those who already have dogs that are used as weapons. Does the Minister agree with her colleague, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, that this was a lunatic idea and take some responsibility on behalf of the Home Office for this ridiculous electioneering?

Meg Hillier: Let me make it clear that the proposal and consultation are a joint effort between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office. It is right that we consider extending dangerous dog laws to cover places such as private property and give more powers to police and councils, including for dog control orders where necessary. The issue of insurance was raised with the Government because of the horrific injuries caused and so it was included in the consultation, although it has now been ruled out. I have not spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs personally about this but we are still interested, certainly from a Home Office perspective, in views on third-party insurance, particularly if a dog control order is in force.

Brian Jenkins: My hon. Friend will realise that dog owners such as myself get very upset when we hear the term "dangerous dogs". It is not the dog that is the problem but the ownership and control of the dog. When are we going to start tackling this in the correct manner in this country by considering it a privilege to own a dog rather than thinking that there is an automatic right for irresponsible people to own or train a dog?

Meg Hillier: I look forward to responses from my hon. Friend and his constituents to the consultation. Responsible ownership is at the heart of what we need to consider. It is the deed not the breed that we are primarily considering but some breeds are bred to be violent. Unfortunately, that is one reason why we have to reconsider this issue. We must consider the full range of options.

Greg Hands: In my constituency of Hammersmith and Fulham, this has been an ongoing problem in many of our local parks, including the local park at the end of my road, Normand park. Just today, I have had an e-mail from a constituent of mine, Robert Hardman, who talks about an appalling incident in Normand park next to the playground where his children were playing last Thursday. There was a savage attack on a puppy by a free-range pit bull-we appreciate that it might not actually have been a pit bull-and the owner of the said pit bull hurled abuse and threats at witnesses, the children were distraught and the victim's owner is now faced with a £3,000 vet's bill. Is not one of the solutions to all this for the police to be able to deal with the dogs in situ rather than necessarily having to take them off to kennels?

Meg Hillier: There are a number of issues exactly like that that the consultation seeks to iron out. I can echo the hon. Gentleman's words from Hammersmith to Hackney: much the same problems are raised with me by my constituents on estates, by gangs and in parks. It is clearly an issue that we need to tackle. There are real problems and that is why I hope the House will back the consultation. I look forward to hearing and seeing the responses.

Kelvin Hopkins: Some time ago, one of my constituents was savagely attacked by what was clearly a weapon dog. Finally, on appeal, she was granted criminal injuries compensation of £5,000. Only then did she learn that the dog had made two previous attacks, and we still do not know whether it has been destroyed. Whatever my hon. Friend does, will she make absolutely sure that such dogs are taken out of circulation permanently?

Meg Hillier: Obviously I do not know about that individual case, but I agree that when horrific incidents happen, proper action needs to be taken. If necessary, that sometimes includes destroying the animal.

Andrew Rosindell: It has taken the Government a very long time to address this extremely serious issue, only for them to get it badly wrong. Will the Home Secretary or the Minister tell us why a flagship policy of introducing compulsory dog insurance was announced two weeks ago, but then overruled and killed off by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? Surely the Home Secretary should admit that he has been muzzled on this issue.

Meg Hillier: Clearly the hon. Gentleman does not know the Home Secretary as well as I do, because he is a very difficult man to overrule. Indeed, he is not someone who is overruled. We need to be clear that we all want a solution to this problem, which was looked at in a consultation-let me correct any misapprehension that it was a Government policy. It is important that we should still consider insurance, particularly when dog control orders are in force, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins). We need to consider that, and I hope we can all agree that this vital issue needs to be tackled. It is interesting that the Opposition choose to concentrate more on the process than on the outcome, in which we all have a shared interest.

Offences

Simon Hughes: How many criminal offences have been created in legislation sponsored by his Department since May 1997.

David Hanson: Since 1997, the Home Office has brought forward legislation as necessary, to address the needs and challenges of the day. When legislation has included criminal offences, these have been proposed only after careful consideration and with the support of Parliament.

Simon Hughes: That is a cop-out of an answer. The Minister knows that there have been 4,200 new offences over 13 years of Labour Government. Looking back, at the end of that time, does he think we would have done far better to pass far fewer laws and to take far longer to make sure that we got them right? Would not the best legacy that he could leave be a penal code so that people could find all the laws in the same place?

David Hanson: I do not accept that there are too many laws. We have put in place a range of legislation that is designed to protect the public, cut crime and increase confidence. I can name three pieces of legislation that the hon. Gentleman has voted against-measures on DNA retention, the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, and measures on tackling disorderly drinking in the streets. I know that those things matter to people in Southwark and throughout the country, so I am sorry that he voted against them.

Rob Marris: Bearing in mind the careful consideration that my right hon. Friend has just mentioned, will he tell the House how many of the new criminal offences that were created by the Labour Government never came into force before then being repealed by the Labour Government?

David Hanson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as ever, for his helpful question. He will know that there are occasions when the situation changes, people look at the legislation and Ministers take decisions accordingly. He will also know that, as a result of legislation that we have introduced, crime has fallen by 36 per cent., violent crime is down, burglaries are down and confidence in policing is up to a record 50 per cent.-all things that never happened before we considered that legislation.

Douglas Hogg: May I suggest that when criminal offences are introduced, great care should be taken not to attach prison sentences to them unless absolutely necessary? We are creating an atmosphere in which prison becomes approved by Government, but we should not do that. We should be sentencing people to imprisonment only when absolutely necessary, and we need to be careful about the penalties that we attach to criminal offences.

David Hanson: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for those comments. He will know that the Ministry of Justice, where I spent two years before coming to this post, is concerned to ensure that we encourage community-based sentences where possible, and to ensure that they will, on some occasions, have a better chance of preventing reoffending than does a short-term prison sentence. We need to consider those issues in the round. Happily, the separation of the judiciary and the legislature is part of the UK's constitution, so the judiciary will ultimately decide the appropriate sentences for offences.

"Cutting Crime"

Alun Michael: What assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of the recommendations in the first report from the Justice Committee, "Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment", HC 94-I; and if he will make a statement.

David Hanson: The Government are grateful to the Justice Committee for its contribution to the debate on how to cut crime, reduce reoffending and manage some of the most difficult individuals in our society. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice published our response on Tuesday 16 March.

Alun Michael: I am delighted that the response is so positive. The strength of the Committee's report is that it looks across the whole criminal justice system instead of being trapped in one part of it. What victims want-other than not becoming victims in the first place-is not to become victims again. Given that, is it not essential that all parts of the criminal justice system, whatever Department they come under, are clear that they are required to focus on reducing offending and reoffending?

David Hanson: It is absolutely vital that we tackle reoffending. That is key to preventing further offending because, sadly, a number of people still go through the prison and justice systems but then ultimately reoffend. Reoffending rates for both adults and youths have fallen by 20 per cent. since 2000, but we need to do more. I know that there is a consensus on that in the House, and it means we must look at employment opportunities, housing and reintegration, and at ensuring that people leave prison in a better place than when they went in.

Alan Beith: I welcome the Government's positive response, but does the Minister accept that the Home Office has an opportunity to develop strategies that will save people from ever becoming victims of crime in the first place-especially if he is able to get his hands on some of the money that might otherwise be committed to further prison expansion?

David Hanson: One of the key things that I have tried to encourage, both as a Justice Minister and now as a Home Office Minister, is integrated offender management. That means that we look at managing offenders through the system, from prison through release and back into the community, where police and probation services work together with important local authority services to make sure that everyone has an opportunity not to reoffend in the future. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's report. I think that it has some merit, and the Government have responded in what I hope is a positive way.

Administrative Burden (Police)

David Amess: What steps his Department has taken to reduce the administrative burden on police forces in the last 12 months.

David Hanson: We are committed to reducing police bureaucracy, including the time spent on unnecessary administrative tasks. This is why I have taken steps to reduce the amount of data that we collect from police forces, scrapped the lengthy stop-and-account form and invested in mobile phone technology to allow officers to work in a much more efficient and smarter way.

David Amess: The Minister will know that, whenever the police are criticised for how they do their job, they invariably say they are hampered by the number of forms that they have to fill in. The Home Secretary said that he would deal with the matter in a radical way. How exactly has he addressed form filling and bureaucracy in a radical fashion?

David Hanson: I take it that the hon. Gentleman has not looked at clause 1 of the Crime and Security Bill currently going through the House of Commons. Has he? I suspect that he has not. If he had, he would have seen that it contains radical proposals, approved by this House, to reduce the stop-and-search form-a measure that by itself will ensure that around 700,000 hours of police time are saved.
	In addition, we have accepted 13 recommendations from Jan Berry, the independent adviser on police bureaucracy. We will implement them over the next six to nine months, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will keep up to speed on these matters.

Keith Vaz: When the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Tim Godwin, gave evidence to the Select Committee last Tuesday, he said that only 30 per cent. of his officers had hand-held devices. The Minister will know that we recommended in our report last year that every front-line officer should have a personal digital assistant, as that would help to cut bureaucracy significantly and ensure that police officers are more visible outside police stations. What are the Government going to do to ensure that every officer has such a device?

David Hanson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who will know, I hope, that we have invested £80 million in securing support for mobile data services. They will save an average of 30 minutes per shift for officers who will not have to go back to the station to complete paperwork that the House does not wish them to do. We want to extend that. I was in Manchester this morning, visiting the Stockport police. They are due to receive their hand-held devices in the next week or so, and that positive approach is being rolled out across the country to ensure that we reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency.

Christopher Huhne: Will the Minister tell us what actions, in addition to those that he has set out, have been taken to introduce voice recognition technology? In his answer, he mentioned the Government's approach to hand-held computers for police on the streets, but what steps are being taken with regard to hiring civilian staff to help to complete forms over the telephone? What progress has been made in pilot schemes to cut the proportion of officers' time spent on paperwork?

David Hanson: There are a number of measures. In the Bill currently before Parliament, we have reduced stop-and-search forms, which will save time, and we have invested £80 million in hand-held devices. I am looking at how we can develop still further the use of modern technology to reduce paperwork and, as I mentioned, through Jan Berry's work in her second year, we will look at implementing the recommendations that we have already accepted to reduce paperwork. There is more that we can do, we have an appetite to do it, and I am confident that that will help support police officers to be more efficient and to reduce the unnecessary paperwork that is being undertaken.

Christopher Huhne: We can all agree on the need to cut red tape, even if we disagree on the speed at which the Government have moved. Despite the latest initiatives, the figures show that England and Wales are under-policed by international standards. We had 264 police officers per 100,000 population, compared with a European average of 357. Does the Minister agree that that is the main reason why our offences per head of population are so much higher than in other countries, and that a real increase in police numbers, such as that proposed by my party, is what is needed to cut crime?

David Hanson: There are 24,000 more police officers than when the Government were elected in 1997-147,000 police officers now. There are 17,000 police community support officers, whereas there were zero when the Government were first elected. Crime is down by 36 per cent., burglary is down, robbery is down and violent crime is down. That is a record worth defending. We can do more, we should do more, and we are committed to support the funding. The hon. Gentleman can always outbid us because he knows he will never be in a position to have to implement any of those decisions.

Linda Gilroy: What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the role of the on-the-spot fines in reducing bureaucracy and in effective policing?

David Hanson: My right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary are undertaking a review. We hope shortly to be able to publish further details on that.

Chris Grayling: In a speech earlier this month, the Prime Minister said that the Government's
	"commitment to protecting the record numbers of police officers . . . is clear."
	Can the Minister guarantee to the House that if the Government are re-elected in May, over the course of the next Parliament there will be no reduction in the total number of police officers currently serving in England and Wales?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman will know that for 2010-11 we have given a 2.5 per cent. minimum increase, and that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have said that there is no reason whatsoever why police forces should reduce the number of warranted officers or police community support officers because the resources will be available. That commitment contrasts with the position of the hon. Gentleman.

Chris Grayling: I notice, interestingly, that the Minister did not answer my question. The reason is straightforward. Last week the Home Office published details of progress on its plans to modernise the police work force. Its document specifically refers to it being difficult for forces to use work force modernisation
	"as one of their levers to meet the cost pressures ahead if they are not able to reduce officer numbers."
	Why is the Prime Minister promising to protect record numbers of police officers, if the Home Office is quietly working on plans to cut officer numbers?

David Hanson: Let us be clear about this. The Home Office is not planning to cut police officer numbers. The Home Office will support sufficient resources to ensure that the number of police officers and policy community support officers that we currently have can be kept in place, should police chiefs wish to do so operationally. The challenge is for the hon. Gentleman to match that commitment on resources when we go in to the election. Last year the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) would not commit to the funding for next year's police funding. That is the challenge, and the electorate will see it.

Chris Grayling: I will be delighted to answer questions from the right hon. Gentleman if we swap sides in the House after the election in May.
	The document to which I am referring clearly states "Home Office" on the front of it. Last time I looked, he and his colleagues were Ministers for the Home Office. The document concludes that
	"there will need to be constructive engagement"
	with politicians and staff associations
	"regarding the impact on officer numbers."
	The Government are quietly planning cuts in police officer numbers. Why can they not tell the truth for a change?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a commitment from the Government to maintain the level of numbers if police chiefs wish to have those numbers. We will maintain the resources to do that. We have a record of 24,000 more officers and 16,500 to 17,000 police community support officers. I do not believe that that record would have been maintained if an alternative Government had been in place. I commend that to the House in due course.

Drugs (Young People)

David Evennett: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's steps to tackle drug-taking by young people.

Meg Hillier: We are committed to preventing and reducing drug use by young people. Drug use among young people has continued to fall over the last decade-

Mr. Speaker: Order. I apologise for interrupting the Under-Secretary, but I think that she is seeking to group this question with Question 11.

Meg Hillier: Forgive me, Mr. Speaker. I am indeed seeking to group those questions.

Nicholas Winterton: What recent estimate he has made of levels of drug misuse among young people.

Meg Hillier: Fifteen per cent. of young people aged 11 to 15 used drugs in 2008, compared with 20 per cent. in 2001.

David Evennett: I thank the Minister for her reply. Mephedrone, the substance that contributed to the deaths of two young men last week, is a legal high that can allegedly be bought for as little as £4. Should the Government not take more seriously the threat that legal highs pose? What steps is the Minister taking to get across to young people the consequences of taking such substances?

Meg Hillier: The hon. Gentleman makes very important points about a very worrying issue. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is reviewing mephedrone and other legal highs as a priority, after a schedule of work that the Home Secretary set last summer. The report on mephedrone is due on 29 March, and if we need to lay an order before Parliament in order to get a measure through, we will do so.

Nicholas Winterton: The Minister will know that legal highs are killing young people. She will know also that many headmasters and headmistresses throughout the country believe that consideration should be given to banning these drugs. When will the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report on that matter and, I hope, say that those drugs will be banned, so that young people are not tempted to take them to get a temporary high-and do not kill themselves in the process?

Meg Hillier: I refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous answer: 29 March. However, we seek to continue to educate young people and their parents about the matter, mainly through the Frank website, which has reported on mephedrone issues in particular since September and has regular updated guidance.

Brian Iddon: Does my hon. Friend believe that the Government invest enough money in early intervention programmes, which result in less criminalisation of so many of our young people later in their lives?

Meg Hillier: We always keep an eye on that issue, but we already invest more than £55 million each year in tackling young people's substance misuse, and that includes funding treatment, area-based grant work for under-18s' misuse, Positive Futures and the Frank website.

James Brokenshire: At the last Home Office questions in February, when the use among young people of legal highs such as mephedrone was discussed, the Home Secretary said that the consideration of the issue was now an absolute priority for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Government. Yet it is reported today that the Home Office was advised five years ago of the problem of those synthetic drugs being bought online. Why did the Government fail to act sooner?

Meg Hillier: The Government have acted, and I shall explain a little of the background to the report to which I believe the hon. Gentleman refers. It was a report on the internet discussing the availability of psychoactive medications only, and our drug laws apply a criminal sanction whatever the route of availability. That report was looking at, and horizon-scanning on, drug futures up to 2025. It set out possibilities rather than realities and made no recommendations to the Government. However, as a result of a number of issues, the Government commissioned more work, and that led last year to the Home Secretary asking the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to look at this, which it is doing to its normal time scales.

Human Trafficking (Lap-dancing Clubs)

Anthony Steen: What recent representations he has received on allegations of exploitation of victims of trafficking in lap-dancing clubs.

Meg Hillier: I have not received any specific representations on the exploitation of victims of trafficking in lap-dancing clubs. Human trafficking is a serious offence and the police will of course investigate allegations of trafficking wherever they occur.

Anthony Steen: I wonder whether the Minister has any plans to ensure that local authorities, which from 1 April have powers under the Policing and Crime Act 2009, will be able to do anything in the 350 relevant lap-dancing clubs that have been identified, bearing in mind the fact that local authorities have no experience of identifying human trafficking victims. Is she thinking of involving the police, or just relying on local authority officials?

Meg Hillier: The police go into lap-dancing clubs, as necessary, and as the House would expect them to do, in order to catch traffickers. It is important that they work closely with local authorities, such as my own in Hackney, which is getting a real grip on the issue now that local authorities have much more say about the licensing of such premises. It is crucial that in something as important as trafficking the right expertise is deployed, but I do not believe that there are any problems in that direction.

Andrew MacKinlay: On the human trafficking of youngsters, will the Minister have a word in her Department about the cases where young teenage women who have been transported from other parts of the globe are rescued or identified by the local authority and brought into care, but when they reach the ages of 19, 20 and 21 cannot get any papers regularised in the United Kingdom and are falling between two stools? Will that be addressed with some urgency and dispatch?

Meg Hillier: We do, on occasion, grant people leave to stay in those situations. Clearly, every case is individual, and I will happily talk to my hon. Friend if he has any particular cases that he wishes to raise.

Yarl's Wood

Alistair Burt: If he will request Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons to undertake an immediate inquiry into the recent protests at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre.

Phil Woolas: The UK Border Agency has commissioned a management review of the incident which will report shortly. The investigators have not raised any concerns thus far, so it is not expected that the matter will require further investigation. However, if overriding concerns are identified, we will of course review that decision.

Alistair Burt: I appreciate the Minister's answer. I also appreciate the involvement at a personal level of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), which is very helpful. Will the Minister reconsider the involvement of Dame Anne Owers? He will be aware that there is increasing concern about the condition of some of those who have been refusing food, that there were reports that some were taken to hospital last week, and that there have been allegations of suicide attempts. There is a continuing difference between the views of those health issues taken by Serco and the UK Border Agency and by those outside who look after detainees, and that will not be ended unless there is an independent review by Anne Owers rather than a management review.

Phil Woolas: I thank the hon. Gentleman. This is an issue in his constituency. He wrote to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 18 March, and a reply is being drafted for him. I take the point that he is making. Thus far, we have found no substance whatsoever in the allegations; indeed, the opposite is the case. If you will indulge me, Mr. Speaker, let me point out that the resident who claimed that she was not a criminal has in fact served time for drug supplying and has attacked two of our officers. CCTV footage is available, and the independent monitoring board, which has written to me and to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, was witness to the alleged incidents, but I have an open mind on the hon. Gentleman's point, because it may be needed to give status-let me put it that way-to these concerns.

Photography Restrictions (Public Places)

Norman Baker: Whether he has issued guidance to police forces on restrictions on members of the public taking photographs in public places.

David Hanson: The National Policing Improvement Agency and I have issued guidance and circulars to the police that make it clear that counter-terrorism powers should not be used to stop innocent people taking photographs. I have also written to all chief constables who have section 44 authorisations to reiterate the point.

Norman Baker: I thank the Minister for that reply, but I have to tell him that the system is not working. Only last week, a journalist from Meridian Television, Phil Hornby, was threatened with arrest and confiscation and deletion of his tape merely for filming an exterior shot of Worthing station. Other individuals have been stopped for taking sunset photographs of St. Paul's and photographs of the Christmas lights in Brighton. Clearly, the guidance that the Minister has issued does not seem to be getting through. What further steps will he take to ensure that we do not slide towards east Germany in this country?

David Hanson: I think that the guidance is helpful. However, last week I met my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and a delegation of a range of individuals involved in photography issues. We agreed with Craig Mackey, the chief constable of Cumbria, who deals with these matters on behalf of chief police officers, that we would consider police training issues. I make this offer to the hon. Gentleman: if there are individual cases where there are concerns, we will look at them to see whether the guidance has been followed. If he wishes to send me further details, I will certainly look into them with Craig Mackey.

Student Visas (Language Schools)

John Howell: What assessment he has made of the effects of tier 4 student visa changes on language schools following the review of November 2009 and the further measures announced in February 2010.

Phil Woolas: The changes came into force on 3 March, and we continually monitor tier 4 to ensure its effectiveness. Our policy is designed to protect the integrity of our immigration system and the reputation of the UK's education providers.

John Howell: The English language industry is worth £1.5 billion a year to the UK economy, which is money we cannot afford to lose. Will the Minister visit with me the many genuine English language schools in my constituency to see the effects that the changes are having on those businesses, many of which are small and family-run?

Phil Woolas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his interest. I know he shares my desire to protect the robustness of the immigration system and at the same time enhance the reputation of genuine providers. I do not believe that the changes that we have made to achieve the former are damaging the latter. We continuously review the system-that is part of the strength of tier 4 and the points-based system overall-and although it is probably too early to tell, I have yet to see evidence of a detrimental effect. We have to protect the genuine student, who has sometimes been exploited by unscrupulous colleges.

John Grogan: Would my hon. Friend be a little more precise about the level of English that prospective students on English language courses must attain? Language schools throughout Europe classify their courses as pre-intermediate, intermediate, advanced intermediate and advanced. Can English language schools still teach advanced intermediate courses?

Phil Woolas: Yes. Some urban myths have been perpetuated in this campaign, so let me be clear that English language courses of six months and below, which are subject to a different visa regime, will be protected. Members of Parliament representing Scotland, which has different terminology, will be pleased to hear that foundation courses are maintained. The problem was with level 5 and below, where there was abuse of the system. As a result of the points-based system, we have significantly cut down the abuse of immigration law and protected the genuine college and, importantly, the genuine student.

Nigel Evans: The Minister is right to hit the phoney colleges, but we need a rigorous regime that does not hit established colleges and schools as well. As he is wandering around the country over the next five weeks, will he pop up to Ribble Valley with me and come to Stonyhurst college to speak to the headmaster? It is clearly not a phoney establishment, and the headmaster believes that the current visa regime is hitting established businesses.

Phil Woolas: I will not be wandering around anywhere; I will be purposeful and focused in my travels-wherever the Secretary of State sends me. The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point about genuine colleges, and I have been very careful not to say that the private sector is bad and the public sector is necessarily good. There is good and bad on both sides of the divide. We have had support from the sector, because its reputation will benefit. I have established a unit in the points-based system tier 4 to deal with such cases, and it is best to do so quickly. Of course, if the hon. Gentleman wants to invite me up to his beautiful constituency, I would be more than happy to go again.

Special Constables

Bob Russell: If he will bring forward proposals to increase the number of special constables recruited from businesses.

David Hanson: In August 2008, a three-year funding programme was announced for the National Policing Improvement Agency to increase the number of special constables in England and Wales through the establishment of nine regional co-ordinator posts. As part of that we have an employer-supported policing programme, which was launched in October 2009, which will ensure further development.

Bob Russell: May I urge the Minister to continue the programme for the foreseeable future? I often think that the role of the special constabulary is underplayed. It plays a vital role in the policing of our communities, and the business community getting involved and releasing staff for training provides a vital pool of additional special constables. I encourage the Government to extend that programme.

David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. We are aiming to get about 20,000 special constables in place in the near future and we are raising our game to ensure that we recruit more. We need the support of the business community to do so. I visited specials in Flint, in my constituency, only three or four weeks ago and saw the wide range of activities and specialist work that they undertake on a voluntary basis in support of the full-time service.

Russell Brown: Has the Minister engaged with the devolved Administration in Edinburgh at any point about the successes or otherwise that they have had in recruiting specials?

David Hanson: To be honest, I have not spoken directly to the Minister in Edinburgh, but my hon. Friend makes a good suggestion. We need to co-ordinate, particularly in constituencies such as his, where there are cross-border issues, and the Cumbrian force could equally support those in the south of Scotland.

Front-line Policing

John Hemming: What assessment his Department has made of the relationship between the number of police officers in police forces and their effectiveness in carrying out front-line policing.

David Hanson: The Government's investment in the police is at record levels. There are record numbers of police officers and police community support officers on the streets. Crime is down by 36 per cent. and confidence in police is increasing. Fifty per cent. of the public agree that antisocial behaviour and crimes that matter to them are being dealt with effectively. I think that that demonstrates the relationship between the issues that the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

John Hemming: There are wide discrepancies in efficiency or effectiveness between one force and another. For example, the detection rate for violent crime in the Met is just 37 per cent., compared with more than half in other urban forces. What is the Home Secretary doing specifically to improve lagging forces so that they meet the standards of the best?

David Hanson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows that we have encouraged inspections of police forces and police authorities to ensure that we examine discrepancies and value-for-money issues when they arise. There has been a recent police report card from Denis O'Connor, Her Majesty's inspector of constabulary, and there has been the same-and will be again-for police authorities. We want to encourage openness about performance so that we can improve it and understand where forces are failing.

Sentencing (Publicity)

Philip Hollobone: If he will provide support to Northamptonshire police's project to publicise sentencing outcomes from Crown courts and magistrates courts.

David Hanson: The Government recognise the importance of providing communities with information about those brought to justice. Through the policing pledge, forces have committed to publicising local outcomes regularly. Her Majesty's Courts Service continues to support that work, including developing a website, which will enable magistrates court outcomes to be accessible to the public online.

Philip Hollobone: If we are to improve the public's confidence in our criminal justice system, do we not need much less sympathising with and understanding of why criminals commit crime, and much more naming and shaming?

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman knows that, while not naming and shaming as such, we support visibility of outcomes in the criminal justice system. That is why the Ministry of Justice introduced orange jackets for community offenders 18 months ago, why we are trying to get individuals involved in picking projects for community work, and why we are trying to ensure that the community knows what happens to people-the outcomes of criminality. Those matters are important, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports them.

Topical Questions

Bob Spink: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Alan Johnson: In October, I asked every community safety partnership in England and Wales to commit publicly to minimum standards for dealing with antisocial behaviour. I am pleased to report that 99.7 per cent. of local authority areas have confirmed that such standards are either in place or will be in place by the end of March, making clear to the public the response that they are entitled to expect when they report antisocial behaviour.

Bob Spink: Does the Home Secretary agree that it is important for local councils to co-operate with the police to fight yobs and antisocial behaviour, particularly in providing fencing and gating, lighting and CCTV in areas where antisocial behaviour is prevalent, such as Richmond car park in Benfleet or King George V's playing fields on Canvey Island?

Alan Johnson: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Although the police have a responsibility for antisocial behaviour, they share it with other agencies. Indeed, in all the areas where antisocial behaviour has been tackled effectively, the police work in partnership with local authorities, social services and often with local communities that have decided to fight back against those who are plaguing their lives. I therefore agree that such co-operation is an important part of tackling antisocial behaviour-we went through the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships to get that sort of response.

Betty Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Mr. Ryan Hilton, an events manager with the pub crawl firm, Carnage UK, was convicted in court in Llandudno last week of assaulting my constituent, Mr. Mark Aelwyn Roberts, causing him actual bodily harm? He will be sentenced at Crown court. Will my right hon. Friend please note that North Wales police had objected to that event in Bangor? Does he agree that that vicious assault sends a message to all licensing authorities that Carnage UK is a disreputable organisation, which causes havoc in our university towns?

Alan Johnson: I was not aware of the individual circumstances that my hon. Friend just outlined. I agree that those disreputable organisations need to be tackled. Indeed, in most places throughout the country, there is a realistic and meaningful partnership between local police and licensees to ensure that licensees do not have their reputations undermined by organisations such as the one that she mentioned.

Edward Timpson: Pursuant to my recent written question on the number of ID card applications made by residents of Crewe and Nantwich in Cheshire, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who I can see is bursting to answer this question, replied:
	"The Identity and Passport Service is not able to provide information relating to particular constituency or county for identity card applications."-[ Official Report, 8 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 123W.]
	Why cannot a scheme that is designed to assist in identifying individuals provide even basic information such as the uptake in my constituency?

Meg Hillier: I forgive the hon. Gentleman for not appreciating that an Act of Parliament passed by this House in 2005-before he was elected-states that it is illegal to interrogate the database to gather such information.

Adrian Bailey: While crime in the west midlands has dropped-in some cases quite spectacularly, particularly burglary-there is still a problem with business crime. On Friday, I visited a business improvement district that had reported a substantial drop in crime as a result of the measures it had taken. What steps is the Minister taking to assess the impact of BIDs and what measures might he contemplate to roll out that prototype in other areas?

David Hanson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who identifies an issue that we need to examine in detail. The Government are firmly committed to working with business and trade associations to find effective solutions. Part of that includes the national retail crime steering group, on which the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium are working together to look at how we deal with crime, particular for those in business communities in town centres. I will certainly look at any particular suggestions that my hon. Friend has, but that is an area on which we need to continue to focus.

John Hemming: Research from the university of Groningen demonstrates that the presence of graffiti encourages other crime. An appropriate penalty is to make someone clear up the graffiti that they have created. Why do the Government still oppose fixed penalty notices for community service for graffiti?

Alan Johnson: As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism said earlier, we are looking at the whole question of fixed notice penalties with the Ministry of Justice, and a report will come soon. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of deterring graffiti. Indeed, up and down the country, community payback is ensuring that those who have engaged in such activity are very visibly and publicly-wearing orange jackets-clearing up the mess that they have made.

Stephen Ladyman: I heard what the Minister for Borders and Immigration said earlier about the new visa arrangements for English language schools, but may I just point out that last Thursday I met a young man from Taiwan who was studying English in this country preparatory to going to Sheffield Hallam university and who will need four or possibly even five visas to achieve that? Indeed, under the new arrangements he may even have to go back Taiwan to make one of those applications. Will my hon. Friend at least consider all the material that I have sent to him and to the Secretary of State and reconsider the position?

Phil Woolas: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work that he is doing-the language schools sector and overseas students are very important parts of his constituency and its economy. The answer to his question is that we very much want to protect that. On the other hand, I am sure that the House agrees that we need to prevent visa abuse. What we have tried to do is provide that seamless route for the genuine student at the genuine college.

Stewart Jackson: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for not being present earlier. With regard to the specific issue of the use of dogs in crime, will the Minister reassure us that any future bright ideas that the Home Office has will focus on individual owner responsibility and deed not breed, so that responsible dog owners are not punished for the sins of the minority?

Meg Hillier: I am tempted to say that I refer the hon. Gentleman to my previous answers, which he can read in  Hansard. However, as I said earlier and now repeat, we want to look mostly at the deed not the breed, but we recognise that some breeds are inherently violent and we need to take that into account as well. However, responsible ownership is the main line.

Jeff Ennis: Since the beginning of the recession, the number of bogus charity clothes collectors has risen very sharply across the country, taking away much needed revenue from bona fide charity shops, such as Cancer Research UK shops in Barnsley and Doncaster. Unfortunately, many chief constables throughout the country are giving that type of crime a very low level of priority. Will the Secretary of State write to all chief constables in England to ensure that they treat such crimes with a great deal more seriousness in future?

Alan Johnson: I will talk to chief constables about that. I go on the basis that if my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis) says that there is a problem, there is a problem. I am only sorry that he will not be here to raise these important points at Home Office questions after the next general election, and I wish him well.

John Baron: My constituents, Mr. and Ms Adedoyin, have received a phone call from someone claiming to be a Home Office caseworker wanting cash in return for their documents, which we had previously been told had been lost by the UK Border Agency. The response from the Home Office to my inquiries to date has been very disappointing. Will Ministers look into this issue as a matter of urgency and meet me to discuss the situation?

Phil Woolas: Of course we will. The UK Border Agency is, from time to time, subject to mischievousness, but the response must be professional. Of course I will look into this and then meet the hon. Gentleman if that proves necessary after my investigation.

Rob Marris: A few years ago, the UK Border Agency shunted a load of old asylum and refugee cases into a pile called legacy cases, which are due to be dealt with by next year. Is the Minister aware that there is a new pile building up of cases that have been overlooked? We will have the same problem all over again with a second pile of legacy cases.

Phil Woolas: I do not agree with that analysis of the situation. The UK Border Agency will, as my hon. Friend says, deal with the legacy cases by the summer of next year, but as we have explained to the Select Committee we are also in the process of archiving cases that go back-I do not wish to make a partisan point-to 1981. The time to conclusion on asylum is now under six months for 60 per cent. of cases. In 1997-to make a partisan point-the average time to a decision, not a conclusion, was 22 months. The Government and the agency should get some credit for dealing with the legacy problem.

Simon Hughes: If we are to have a real increase in the visibility of police on the streets of Britain and in the clear-up rate for offences, and a real reduction in police response times and the time that they spend behind closed doors, is not the suggestion this morning by Sir Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, that we should have a full review of policing one that should have the immediate agreement of the Government?

Alan Johnson: Sir Hugh Orde was calling for a royal commission. I do not agree with that suggestion, although I am keen to talk to Sir Hugh Orde about this. He is a man of great experience and I respect his views considerably. However, it is not the case that because the last royal commission was in 1962 there has to be another one at intermittent periods. We used to have royal commissions that went on for a long time during which everything was preserved in aspic because nobody knew what would happen next. We should consistently review our methods of policing to ensure that they keep pace with advances in technology and changes around the world, for instance in counter-terrorism, and we are doing that. Ronnie Flanagan's report, the Green Paper and the White Paper, and many other changes over the last few years have revolutionised the way in which the police do their work. We need to continue to change to meet the challenges of our times.

Mr. Speaker: Let us make a real effort to speed up now, as I wish to get some more questions in.

Brian Iddon: Several times in the past few weeks, including today, I have heard the claim that mephedrone is killing young people. The cases that I have looked at suggest that the young people concerned were taking more than one drug, including alcohol. Should we not be getting across to young people the fact that if they choose to take a cocktail of drugs, they are putting their lives at risk? Mixing cocaine and alcohol, for example, produces the very toxic cocaethylene.

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend, with his usual scientific analysis, is making the case for why we have to wait for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to report on wide-ranging and close analysis of the problem before saying whether mephedrone is a dangerous drug. We might all have views on that, but they should be driven by the scientific evidence. Once that report is made to me-I hope that that will happen as soon as possible after 29 March, when the council's next meeting is scheduled-then we can make an informed decision.

Greg Hands: To return to the issue of dangerous dogs, the Minister will know that the London Mayor, his deputy Kit Malthouse and various local authorities, such as Hammersmith and Fulham, are working extremely hard on the problem. As a follow-up to my earlier question about the incident in Normand park last Thursday, the resident concerned was clear in praising his local councillor, Councillor Sarah Gore, along with Greg Smith and his team. Will the Minister agree to meet Councillor Greg Smith and Kit Malthouse to see how local authorities can do something serious about the problem, rather than using the Government's failed insurance scheme?

Meg Hillier: We are always keen to work with anyone, and I will certainly pass on the request for an invitation to the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), who deals with the issue on a day-to-day basis.

Andrew MacKinlay: Why did it take over two years to set up the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and, bearing in mind that it is a mass meeting of 22 members who were appointed in February, what opportunity does it have to report back during this Parliament? What is its current programme and what are the Minister's expectations?

Mr. Speaker: Order. There were at least three questions there, but one answer will suffice.

Alan Johnson: My answer is that I am rushing off after this Question Time to appear before that very body; it is the first time that it has called Ministers to appear before it. My hon. Friend raises an important point about the role of the Committee. The only thing that I am absolutely convinced about is the need for such a Committee. However, as it is new, and as it deals with such wide-ranging issues, to a great degree it has a major say in how it shapes the way its work will pan out in future.

David Burrowes: Does not the recent concern about legal highs demonstrate the contrast between the speed at which new dangerous drugs can come on to the market and kill people, and the slow process of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Government in taking real action to tackle the issue? Is it not the case that serious questions are now being asked about whether the ACMD and the classification system are fit for purpose?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman is being unfair to the ACMD. For a start, it has led the world on legal highs such as Spice and GBL, and it was there before anyone else. Secondly, the ACMD could have been a lot quicker in bringing its report forward if-

Christopher Huhne: If Professor Nutt had not been sacked.

Alan Johnson: One of the newspapers said that Professor Nutt's sacking had delayed the report by six months, but as I sacked him only five months ago, that seems a bit difficult. To return to the important point, however, the report could have been done more quickly had the ACMD looked just at mephedrone. However, it decided-this had the support of the House when we discussed the matter-to look at that generic group of drugs, so that when it makes a decision, and if that decision is carried into law, we do not allow the manufacturers of such drugs to make small chemical changes and continue to make them available. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) is doing a disservice to the ACMD, whose vision has enabled us to deal with that whole family of drugs, rather than just one.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry not to be able to accommodate the remaining colleagues, but time is against us, although, as I am kindly exhorted from a sedentary position, I will not worry.

Lobbying and Paid Advocacy

Harriet Harman: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement about paid advocacy and lobbying. These issues are, rightly, of great concern to this House and to the public. The highest standards are expected of Ministers, former Ministers and Members of this House. The public are entitled to be completely confident that, when Ministers make a decision, it is made in the public interest and that there is no impropriety whatever.
	Allegations have been made in respect of ministerial decisions in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in respect of food labelling, ministerial decisions in the Department for Transport in respect of National Express and the east coast main line, and a decision in the Department of Health in respect of that Department's advisory group for a programme board for people with mental health problems and learning difficulties in the criminal justice system.
	I can tell the House that Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and in the Department for Transport are clear that those decisions were made properly in the public interest. Civil servants in the Department of Health who took the decisions on the advisory group are satisfied that they made the correct decision in the public interest and were not responding to any inappropriate or undue influence. In each of the cases raised, the Departments concerned have looked into the allegations and confirmed that they are satisfied that the decisions have been made without the impropriety alleged.
	The Prime Minister today sought the Cabinet Secretary's assurance that the Departments had looked into those claims. The permanent secretaries made inquiries, as they would into any such serious allegations, and they have assured the Cabinet Secretary that they were satisfied that there had been no improper influence on Government policy or ministerial decisions. They are setting this out in public statements today.
	I want to reassure hon. Members and the public that Ministers act in the public interest. They make decisions in the public interest. That is a fundamental part of the duties of their office. Ministers are bound by the ministerial code, which is based on an acceptance that ministerial office brings with it serious responsibility and a duty to the nation. The code was strengthened and updated in July 2007. Allegations of a breach of the ministerial code are investigated by Sir Philip Mawer, the independent adviser on ministerial standards. Ministers have to act within the ministerial code, and, if they do not, they cannot continue as Ministers. That requires them to act in the public interest and not in any private interest. From 1 October last year, the Government now publish, for the first time, on a quarterly basis, details of Ministers' meetings with outside interest groups. It is therefore fully transparent which organisations a Minister has met and what the meeting was about.
	The position on former Ministers is that they must not take any proposed employment of any kind unless it has been approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. That has been the position since 2007, when we strengthened the process by making it a requirement for two years after leaving ministerial office instead of one year, and making it a requirement to get approval rather than just to notify, as was previously the case. Former Ministers are also governed by the rules that apply to all Members of this House or, if they are in the House of Lords, the rules that apply to all peers.
	Members of this House are required to abide by the code of conduct for Members of Parliament, which was reissued, updated and strengthened in June last year. Fundamental to the code of conduct is the requirement for hon. Members to abide by the seven principles of public life. The rules that embody those principles are stringent and extensive, and breach of the rules is dealt with, following a complaint or a self-referral, by an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and, if necessary, by action by the Standards and Privileges Committee. Any allegation that a Member of this House has broken the code of conduct will be thoroughly investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards so that the House can, if necessary, impose the appropriate sanction. We have high standards, clear rules and a clear remedy for breach, and that is how it should be.
	Members of Parliament are paid a salary. If an hon. Member takes on any other work for which they are paid, they are, since June 2009, required to register every payment made to them, including the amount and what they were paid for. That ensures that, if any hon. Member is getting paid over and above their MP's salary, the public know who is paying them and for what. Failure to register a payment is a breach of the code of conduct.
	The rules relating to civil servants state that they are required to abide by the civil service code, which has now being put on a statutory footing in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. Breach of the code is dealt with by the Cabinet Secretary and the civil service commissioners.
	I turn now to those who seek to be MPs. Following the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Government have issued guidance to all candidates standing at the next general election about the voluntary disclosure of their financial interests, including their tax status.
	Following the report of the Public Administration Committee in January last year, the Government have been working with the lobbying industry to establish a register of lobbyists. Building on that work, and in the light of the latest allegations, we think that that should be put on a statutory footing. There should be a legal register of lobbyists, which would require people to register as lobbyists and to register the identity of the clients on whose behalf they were acting. This is necessary to give the public confidence that that is the law and that it will be complied with. I commend the statement to the House.

George Young: I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for an advance copy of her statement. However, it leaves a number of unresolved issues. The fact that the Leader of the House has had to come to the House to explain the situation is a clear indication of the seriousness of these allegations, which threaten to become, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) warned, the next big scandal in Westminster. Does she agree that the sight of former Cabinet Ministers offering to lobby Government on behalf of corporate interests for private gain, in one case as a kind of "cab for hire" for up to £5,000 per day, will have deeply appalled the public and further undermined trust in politics at a moment when we all hoped that we were turning the corner.
	The public will now expect the Government to treat these revelations with the seriousness they deserve, but rather than clarifying the facts, Downing street appears to be doing the opposite. Does the Leader of the House not recognise that the Prime Minister's decision to rule out a proper inquiry before the television programme has even gone out was simply the wrong response, particularly as the Secretary of State for Transport has just confirmed in another place that he spoke to the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) about the east coast franchise? Does she not agree with me that the allegation that public policy was in some way altered by ex-Ministers lobbying for corporate clients to the possible disadvantage of the taxpayer and the consumer needs to be fully and impartially investigated and that the Cabinet Secretary should carry out an appropriate review, as requested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude)?
	The House will have heard what the Leader of the House said about the internal departmental review, but does she not agree with her colleague, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, who said on the radio at 1 o'clock that
	"the Cabinet Secretary will want to assure himself that nothing has gone wrong at the Departmental end".
	Should not the results of this review be put in the public domain? In ruling out an inquiry, has the Prime Minister followed due process? Who exactly has he consulted in the course of the last 24 hours to satisfy himself so quickly as to the veracity or otherwise of these claims?
	Does the Leader of the House recall that I asked her for a debate on the Public Administration Committee's report into lobbying back in October at my first business questions? With the benefit of hindsight, does she regret never finding time for that debate? Why did the Government drag their feet on this report for months? The Committee published its original report in December 2008, but the Government did not respond for almost a year, instead of the recommended six weeks. The original PAC report clearly stated that
	"with the rules as loosely and as variously interpreted as they currently are, former Ministers in particular appear to be able to use with impunity contacts they built up as public servants to further a private interest."
	In reply, the Government did not agree with
	"the general assertion that former Ministers in particular are able to use improperly and with impunity contacts they have built up while in office".
	Does she now regret that response and, in paragraph 31, rejecting statutory regulation, which she accepted a few moments ago?
	Moving forward, does the right hon. and learned Lady agree with me that the advisory committee on public appointments should be placed on a statutory basis? If she does, what explanation does she have for the Government not supporting the amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill tabled on 2 March in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), which would have done exactly that? Does she agree that we need to review the two-year time limit for ex-ministerial appointments, giving a longer horizon than is currently the case?
	The country will expect the Government to deal with these issues thoroughly and promptly. If they are not finalised before Dissolution, does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that it will be the first responsibility of an incoming Government to instruct the Prime Minister's adviser on the ministerial code to undertake a full review of this episode so that Government can learn the lessons of what has gone wrong and then change the rules to prevent a recurrence of this scandal in the future?

Harriet Harman: The shadow Leader of the House referred to the "cab for hire" quote. I think I can say on behalf of all hon. Members that that is not what anyone in this House of Commons wants to see, and it is certainly not what the public want to see. The matter is to be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
	The right hon. Gentleman said that public policy had been altered in respect of transport. I refer him to what I said in my statement, and to today's statement by the Secretary of State for Transport in the House of Lords. Public policy was not altered in any way. It is absolutely refuted and strongly denied that there was any alteration of public policy. The Secretary of State for Transport said that
	"there is no truth whatsoever in the suggestion that Stephen Byers came to any arrangement with me on any matter relating to National Express."
	He went on to say:
	"I told Mr. Byers that such a move would undermine the rail franchise system and would not be in the best interests of taxpayers."
	Further to that, the permanent secretary to the Department for Transport has said:
	"I have looked into the allegations made over the weekend about improper influence by former ministers on departmental policy making and decision making in relation to National Express rail franchise business. Having made inquiries, I am satisfied that there was no impropriety on the part of ministers or officials in the Department. The Secretary of State for Transport has also made a statement in the House of Lords which rejected any allegation of impropriety."
	I ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept that.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked why we had not found time for a debate on the register. We found time to debate a motion that I had tabled and to which the House agreed, although it was not without controversy. We found time to ensure that information about every penny earned by Members of Parliament over and above their pay as Members would be available, so that the public would be fully in the picture in regard to who was paying Members of Parliament over and above their salaries, and for what.
	We found time to amend the code for Ministers to ensure that, without waiting for Freedom of Information Act requests-incidentally, it was this Government who introduced the Freedom of Information Act-Ministers must publish quarterly information about all organisations that they have met, and specify the subject of those meetings. That will now be in the public domain. We also found time to amend and tighten the rules relating to former Ministers, extending the one year that had obtained previously to two years, and introducing a requirement for not just notification but approval before any job is undertaken by a former Minister.
	I understand that there was no proposal for the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments-if that is the committee that the right hon. Gentleman meant-to be put on a statutory footing by any Member in any part of the House during the passage of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. However, it is worth looking into. The current arrangement appears to be working well at present, but if hon. Members want that- [Interruption.] Well, we will consider it.

David Heath: I thank the Leader of the House for advance sight of her statement. However, I think it very unlikely that it would have been made today had it not been for the revelations in the press.
	The depressing fact is that the House of Commons always has to react to what happens, rather than taking the necessary action in advance. We did the same in the case of the expenses system. We did not react in time, and we have seen the consequences. We have done the same in relation to party political funding: we have not taken the appropriate steps, and we see what is happening as a result. Now there is the issue of lobbying, which we all knew would eventually hit the newspapers.
	What will our constituents think when they read that right hon. and hon. Members of this House think that they should be paid, on top of their parliamentary salary, more for two days' work than a pensioner gets in a whole year? That is the reality of the situation. And what is that for? It is for asking a few cosy questions of their chums in government or, in the case of the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), of what she describes as the "girls' club"-I am not sure what that comprises. We are talking about questions being put not on behalf of constituents or the national public interest, but for the partisan commercial interest of whoever is prepared to pay the cab fare, and that cannot be right.
	On the individual decisions, I note, as the right hon. and learned Lady has done, that the Transport Secretary has just answered an urgent question in another place. That was done in another place because the Transport Secretary cannot come here to answer elected Members on a key matter of public interest, and neither can the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills-neither of them are Members who have been elected to their current office. In order to dispel any lingering doubts, will the Leader of the House arrange for every record of meetings on this matter, as well as letters, e-mails or any other contacts, to be made openly available so that we can judge whether there has been any influence on policy?
	The Leader of the House referred to the ministerial code and the work of Sir Philip Mawer, who was asked to investigate. We must remember that he can investigate only at the request of the Prime Minister; the Prime Minister is the only one who governs the ministerial code. I have very little confidence in the Prime Minister in this respect, because I happen to know that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) has sent three letters to him with complaints about a former Minister who may have breached the ministerial code and he has not yet received a reply. So what confidence can we have in that code? Should the code be adapted so that Ministers and civil servants are required not even to entertain approaches from Members of this House if they are made on behalf of commercial interests-if they are made on behalf of paid advocacy? There is no reason why Members should have access to Ministers on that basis; they are not working on behalf of their constituents, so why should they have that privileged position?
	The Leader of the House has said that she is interested now-suddenly-in what the Public Administration Committee said about the statutory register for lobbyists, but she has had that report for some time and parliamentary vehicles were available for that to have been enacted. Why was it not? We have had plenty of time to debate lots of other things, so why did we not have a debate and an amendment-a Government proposal-on this subject? Why did she not accept the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) to the Companies Act 2006, which would have required companies to register when they decide to hire a Member of this place in order to do their business? Why did the Government resist that amendment and not let it through?
	The fact is that we are tougher on the lowliest parish council member than we are on Members of this House. It seems to me that paid advocacy in Parliament for commercial or partial interests is not compatible with the duties of a Member of this House.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman says that we are taking action after the event. I have set out the action that we have already taken to make sure that details of meetings with Ministers, which previously were completely secret and not known to the public, are all routinely put in the public domain. I have explained to him that we have taken action to extend the period of time in which former Ministers must seek permission for a job they do. I have also set out to the House that whereas previously Members could be paid by companies or any organisation and it was shrouded in secrecy, we brought a motion before this House that now requires Members to register all the income they receive for work done in addition to their work as Members of this House. I ask him to recognise that we are not taking action after the event; we have taken action before the event. The allegation about my right hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) will be investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
	As far as the civil service code is concerned, we have put that on a statutory footing. As for people being paid on top of their salary, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the step that we have taken is to ensure that instead of its being shrouded in secrecy, it is known to the public. He should recognise that the House took that decision. Previously, that information was shrouded in secrecy and now all members of the public can see it.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me to put in the public domain information about meetings held by the Transport Secretary prior to the National Express decision. Because since 2007 we have decided automatically to make public the meetings that Ministers have, that information should already be in the public domain for decisions that were made in July and November last year. The hon. Gentleman is asking me to put information in the public domain-not only the fact of the meeting but what the meeting was about must be put in the public domain.
	The hon. Gentleman says that we are suddenly interested in the report of the Public Administration Committee. That is not the case-

Peter Bone: So you are not interested then?

Harriet Harman: No, what has happened is that there have been ongoing discussions about establishing a register of lobbyists so that there can be more transparency about who is acting on whose behalf. Because of the public concern that has arisen out of the most recent allegations, we think that it is right to move that forward on to a statutory footing to reassure the public that there is a statutory register. The law will require those who are lobbyists to register the fact that they are lobbyists as well as who their clients are.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) asked why companies should not have to register when they hire an MP. I would answer that it is the responsibility of the MP to register that they have been hired. That is certainly an important first step, which did not exist before last June, when it came into effect. We have just started to register that information.
	I would share with the hon. Gentleman-I think all hon. Members would do so, too-a sense that we do not want anybody in this House to bring the House into disrepute. We do not want anybody to bring Government into disrepute or to throw a cloud of suspicion over a Government who are acting in the public interest. That is why it is important for me to be so emphatic, so that we reassure the public that whatever actions have been taken by individual Members of this House, they will be investigated. I can assure hon. Members that when it comes to decision making by Ministers, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills or the Secretary of State for Transport, they have taken those decisions as Ministers of the Crown in the public interest.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: Order. No fewer than 21 hon. and right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. Accommodating all of them will require short questions and short answers.

David Winnick: Although I recognise the steps that have already been taken and what my right hon. and learned Friend has set out, may I ask her this question? Why should any hon. Member be involved in lobbying for commercial interests? No one has been elected to do that and it is understandable that if we are to continue to clean up Parliament, such lobbying should be totally outlawed. There is no justification for it and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend recognises the strength of public opinion on this issue.

Harriet Harman: I certainly do. I think that I have made my views on this known to the House on a number of occasions. I know that my hon. Friend will be aware of them. It was a very important step for the public-who, after all, are the people who vote for us to be in this House of Commons-to know whether a Member of Parliament whom they have been sending to the House of Commons is doing work that is different from or over and above the work that they were elected to do. Their constituents should know that. Before we took that step, it was not possible for the public to know that. The fact that it has made a difference has been attested to by the fact that a number of Opposition Members, including possibly some shadow Cabinet members, have decided to relinquish outside interests rather than fully registering them. It shows that it has made an important difference.

Peter Tapsell: Despite the seriousness of the allegations levelled against the Privy Counsellors, does the Leader of the House agree that they pale into insignificance when compared with assertions that Mr. Blair has been seeking to make money for himself through ventures in Iraq of all places?

Harriet Harman: Mr. Blair is a private citizen who is entitled to do whatever is within the law. That is not a responsibility of this House, or a responsibility of mine as the Leader of the House.

Paul Flynn: The Member in question is not the first man to indulge in boastful fantasies while talking to a young woman, but should not this shameful episode convince the House of the need to follow the fine example of the Public Administration Committee, which united to make an all-party, tough recommendation to make sure that MPs could never again be for hire?

Harriet Harman: I agree with the sentiments of my hon. Friend, and I think that important steps forward were taken by having full transparency. The register of lobbyists will also take things forward on a statutory basis.

Justine Greening: Why does it always take a crisis before the Government ever take any action on preserving the integrity of the House? With an election just weeks away, why will the Leader of the House not finally agree to have a fair, impartial and independent inquiry into all this?

Harriet Harman: I would respond to the hon. Lady's question in two ways. First, I do not want to have to reiterate to her all the action that we have already taken to toughen up the system and to make sure that it is transparent, that there are clear rules and that those rules are enforced. I have explained to the House that, in respect of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside, there is going to be an investigation into his conduct by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. If my right hon. Friend's conduct is found to have fallen short of the principles of public life, set out in the code of practice for Members of Parliament, further action will be taken. That investigation is under way.
	As far as the question now is concerned, in respect of the decisions taken by the Government, as I said in my statement, the Prime Minister has sought the Cabinet Secretary's assurance that Departments have looked into the claims. One would not expect them to wait after allegations of such seriousness had been made. They looked into these matters right away and, as impartial civil servants, they have given their view that there was
	"no improper influence on Government policy and decisions."
	I hope that the hon. Lady and the public will be reassured about this.

Colin Burgon: Is the Leader of the House aware of the revulsion that is felt by many Labour MPs about the attitude of so-called Labour colleagues? Surely, the answer to all this is to cut the Gordian knot and make sure that all MPs, especially Labour MPs, have no outside work at all when they are MPs. On a lighter note, will she at least say that this could mark the final nail in the coffin of the new Labour project?

Harriet Harman: If my hon. Friend looks at the previous Register of Members' Interests, he will find that by far the most registered interests for people earning outside Parliament were not from those on our side of the House. I did not make that point in my statement, but he has provoked me to explain what the reality was. That is why we have argued for greater transparency.

Peter Bone: Are we not seeing a tired, worn-out Government who are mired in sleaze? We cannot go on like this; it must be time for change.

Harriet Harman: I strongly refute the allegation that there has been any impropriety on behalf of Ministers. I have already referred the House to what has been said by the Department for Transport, and I can refer the House to what was said by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The permanent secretary has said:
	"I have looked into the allegations made over the weekend about former ministerial influence on policy-making. I am satisfied in the light of these investigations that there has been no improper influence on officials in my Department."
	In addition, I can report to the House that the Business Secretary has said that he has not spoken to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside about food labelling regulations, and that he would not expect to.

Dennis Skinner: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, on many occasions over the past many years, I have raised the question of Members of Parliament serving two masters and taking money from outside? There is only one solution to the matter, and it is that all Members of Parliament, on all sides of the House, must have one job and one job only-serving their constituents. Is it not high time that we put that in the manifesto and presented it to the people? Opposition Members would treat such a pledge in the manner that we expect, because they have so many lobbyists. No one starves on £60,000 a year, so let's get on with it.

Harriet Harman: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's sentiments, and he and I have discussed this on many occasions. I think that the public ought to be absolutely confident that their Member of Parliament is acting in their interests. They need to know who Members are taking money from, and for what.

Elfyn Llwyd: The Leader of the House has sought many times today to reassure the House that the individuals involved did not, and could not, influence Government policy. Should they not be investigated for attempting to obtain pecuniary advantage by deception?

Harriet Harman: If there is any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, that is something that the police will decide independently to investigate. It is not for me as Leader of the House, or indeed for Ministers, to direct police investigations. It is for the police to work out what they want to investigate, and to take that forward with operational independence.

Gordon Prentice: We on this side of the House are all scandalised by the behaviour of the Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers). It was a disgrace, and absolutely shaming. I want to congratulate my Friend on saying at the Dispatch Box that the Government-hopefully the next Government-will bring forward a mandatory register of lobbyists. However, I did not hear the Gentleman who speaks for the Opposition commit his party to bringing in a mandatory register.

Harriet Harman: We will put the mandatory register proposal in our manifesto, and we hope that all parties support it. A reading of the previous Registers of Members' Interests shows that large sums of money have been taken, overwhelmingly by Opposition Members. They held something like 70 per cent. of directorships, whereas something like 30 per cent. were held by Members on this side. We should recognise that the rules that we have brought in are important for all Members of this House.

Alistair Burt: But on what terms are briefings given to former Secretaries of State about future Government policy? An example would be briefings given by the Ministry of Defence to the former Secretary of State for Defence. It cannot be within the terms of such briefings that they are available for use for commercial gain by private companies, as the former Defence Secretary himself has alleged.

Harriet Harman: Briefings are not given to former Ministers unless they have a particular responsibility to carry out on behalf of the Department or of the Government. If they have such a responsibility, they carry it out in the public interest, and not for any private interests.

John Grogan: The noble Lord Whitty recently attacked the influence of lobbying companies representing producer interests in securing important amendments to the Digital Economy Bill. Given that, would it not be an affront to our democracy if that Bill, which has been so heavily influenced by lobbyists, were to be rushed through its Second Reading on Easter Tuesday-possibly as the Prime Minister is on his way to the Palace to seek the Dissolution of Parliament-and then rushed through its final stages in the wash-up?

Harriet Harman: The Digital Economy Bill is of great concern not just to lobbyists, but to consumers and providers of digital services. We will look for an opportunity to bring it back to the House for debate. There is no intention to rush it through, and certainly no intention to serve the interests of lobbyists. The intention is to serve the interests of this country.

Brooks Newmark: Can the Leader of the House say whether the Prime Minister spoke to the Cabinet Secretary or even the Business Secretary before ruling out a Government investigation?

Harriet Harman: The Prime Minister today sought the Cabinet Secretary's assurance that Departments had looked into the claims. Inquiries had already been made, as they would following any such serious allegations. As soon as such an issue is raised, the relevant Departments will immediately look into them. The relevant permanent secretaries at the Department of Health, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Transport have assured the Cabinet Secretary that they are satisfied that there has been no improper influence on Government policy or decisions. That is their assurance, which they are setting out in public statements later today. That is the information that the Prime Minister sought.

Mark Field: Given that the apparent defence of the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) to these very serious allegations is that he is a liar, does the right hon. and learned Lady regard him as a fit and proper person for elevation to the House of Lords, which presumably is what he is looking for, come the next election?

Harriet Harman: The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards will be investigating the conduct of the right hon. Member for North Tyneside. It is not for me to pronounce on that. It is a matter for the commissioner, as far as the House is concerned.

Bernard Jenkin: Did Lord Adonis inform the permanent secretary as soon as he had been approached by the right hon. Member for North Tyneside, who was representing the interests of National Express? Is not the real problem that we are relying entirely on a Minister's word that the ministerial code has been complied with? Who enforces the ministerial code? Is it not Ministers themselves and the Prime Minister? Is there not a case for putting the ministerial code for Ministers and former Ministers on to a statutory footing?

Harriet Harman: The Secretary of State for Transport has answered questions on precisely that issue in the House of Lords today. The hon. Gentleman will know that the foremost responsibility of a Minister is to Parliament. Ministers are bound not to mislead Parliament. The Secretary of State for Transport has answered questions at the Dispatch Box. He told the House of Lords that he has acted with total propriety at all times. He has given that absolute assurance to the House of Lords, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members will accept that.

Andrew Robathan: In her statement the Leader of the House said that partially to avoid "any inappropriate or undue influence . . . details of Ministers' meetings with outside interest groups and individuals" are published. Given that we are told, and we see on the television, that Charlie Whelan has regular access to 10 Downing street and is alleged to have a desk in 10 Downing street, can the Leader of the House assure us that any meeting between the Prime Minister and Charlie Whelan is published?

Harriet Harman: I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman about the situation in relation to the Prime Minister's diary. I know that if Ministers meet representatives of organisations, those meetings are reportable on a quarterly basis.

Douglas Hogg: The right hon. and learned Lady will know that I am a practising barrister. I have always declared that and, as such, I have always defended the right of hon. Members to have declared external interests. I make no comment about the three Members referred to in  The Sunday Times article because I have no special knowledge at all, but what surely would be wrong and very difficult to justify would be for an hon. Member to use their position as a Member of Parliament to perform parliamentary functions in return for a specific payment. What would be quite impossible to justify would be doing that without declaring the fact. Is that not where the evil lies?

Harriet Harman: I think that that would count as paid advocacy. No one can be paid for taking a particular action in this House, whether it is making a speech or tabling a question. We outlawed paid advocacy, but I agree that, notwithstanding what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said, the public distinguish between people who pursue what was their profession before they entered the House, perhaps as a doctor or even as a lawyer, and people who take on commercial interests once they have entered the House. That is the big dividing line about which the public are concerned. Notwithstanding that, it is important that all payments are revealed, including payments to those who sit as judges on the bench and those who act as lawyers.

Andrew MacKinlay: May I reiterate to my right hon. and learned Friend that the overwhelming majority of constituents and, I think, Members here believe that being a Member is a seven-day-a-week job, 52 weeks a year? There is simply no room for other employment, and it should be outlawed. Will she look at the attendance of some of our colleagues who are subject to criticism? They do not turn up to vote-some of them, I forget what they look like. I believe that we should work right up until the final whistle blows on 9 August, or whenever it is, and until we reach that stage everyone should be here every day.

Harriet Harman: For those hon. Members who are standing for re-election, it is their constituents who will decide what is appropriate based on what they have done; it is their constituents who will judge their record of attendance and what they have said while they have been here; and it is their constituents, too, who will judge the work that they have done in their constituencies, because hon. Members work not only in this House, but in their constituencies. Ultimately, the electors will have the final say, and rightly so.

John Hemming: A few years ago a lobbyist offered me a sum of money to make a speech in support of redundancies at the National Blood Service, which I found very strange, but because the speech would have taken place outside, not inside, the House, I could not get the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to intervene. In reviewing the rules, could we ensure that MPs are able to report lobbyists who ask for improper actions outside, as well as inside, the House?

Harriet Harman: I think that any money that is paid to Members for what they do inside or, indeed, outside the House-every single pound that is paid in that respect-has got to be registered so that the public can see and the voters can make their judgment.

Mark Pritchard: Can the Leader of the House inform hon. Members whether the Prime Minister spoke to the Transport Secretary before ruling out an inquiry into all those shady dealings?

Harriet Harman: The Prime Minister sought assurances and received those assurances, but, obviously, permanent secretaries and the Cabinet Secretary would keep all those things under consideration. However, the Prime Minister sought the assurances and received them.

Bob Spink: This is another low ebb for the House-as bad as cash for questions and 1997. Does the Leader of the House think that it is perhaps time for more Independents in this House?

Harriet Harman: No, but I do think that it is time for the tough rules that we have to be swiftly and effectively enforced.

Shailesh Vara: The Leader of the House has been very precise in her choice of words. She said that the civil servants advised that there had been no improper influence. By inference, there was influence, therefore, and it was proper, so will she tell the House the extent of that influence?

Harriet Harman: It is an unusual accusation-that I have been precise in the imprecision of my words. I have simply tried to assure hon. Members, including the hon. Gentleman. People would be rightly very troubled if they thought, and were right in their fear, that massive and important decisions such as those on food labelling and the distribution of franchises for rail operators were made because a Minister listened to a former colleague who was being paid. The public would be rightly horrified-we all would be-and I want to assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that that was not the basis on which those decisions were taken. If there is a question of wrongdoing by those other than Ministers, such as those who are being investigated, that is not a matter for me. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no impropriety or undue influence when those very big and important decisions were taken.

Points of Order

Simon Burns: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your guidance and advice? My understanding is that when a Department seeks to group questions together at Question Time, it is a common practice and courtesy that hon. Members whose questions are going to be grouped together are notified in advance by the Department that that is going to happen. I have spoken to a number of my colleagues who had their questions grouped at today's Home Office questions, and they all tell me that none of them had been notified in advance. I certainly know that a few weeks ago I had a question grouped and the first time I knew about it was when I saw it on the monitor rather than from any notification to my office. Can you confirm that Departments should still be continuing the practice whereby they notify hon. Members, and could you use your offices to ensure that they return to the courtesy that we always expected from them?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. His understanding of the custom and practice is entirely correct, and that custom and practice should continue. It most certainly should have applied on today's occasion and, indeed, on all others. It is helpful that the Leader of the House is present when I am answering the hon. Gentleman's point of order, and she may wish to respond. She is not obliged to do so, but she may wish to do so. I can say only that I regard it as a fundamental courtesy that when a grouping is proposed the ministerial team should notify Members affected in advance and without fail. Does the Leader of the House wish to comment?

Harriet Harman: indicated dissent.

Mr. Speaker: Okay. However, I have made the position very clear and those on the Treasury Bench have heard it.

Stewart Jackson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to seek your guidance having already given you prior notice in writing. On 15 March, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik), issued an answer to this written parliamentary question from me:
	"To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the regional fire control rooms in London will be operational and live by September 2011."
	The Minister's reply was as follows:
	"Under current planning assumptions the regional fire control centre for London is due to become operational during September 2011. Planning assumptions are currently under review."-[ Official Report, 15 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 666W.]
	That gave a clear impression that the London fire control centre was still on course to be operational by September 2011. As we know, Mr. Speaker, the Olympics run from July to September 2011.  [ Interruption. ] In 2012-I beg your pardon. However, I have subsequently discovered that on 9 March the Minister wrote to the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority to say:
	"I have asked the FiReControl team to begin discussions with your project team about how we can move to a planning assumption that London would only join the FiReControl network after the Olympic Games."
	The ministerial code states that
	"it is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity"
	and that Ministers should
	"be as open as possible with Parliament and the public".
	In this context, the Minister's reply represents a significant and inadvertent misleading omission in failing to indicate that he was preparing to delay the project. I therefore ask what guidance you can give so that we can bring the Minister to the Dispatch Box to make a full statement to the House.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman both for his point of order and for giving me advance notice of it. It is not, of course, for me to adjudicate on the accuracy of answers. It is open to the Minister to issue a correction if his answer was erroneous. Otherwise, the hon. Gentleman may seek advice from the Table Office about ways of pursuing this matter.

Justice and Northern Ireland

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call the Secretary of State to move the first motion, I understand that it may be for the convenience of the House if the three instruments are debated together.

Shaun Woodward: I beg to move,
	That the draft Northern Ireland Court Service (Abolition and Transfer of Functions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved.

Mr. Speaker: With this we shall discuss the following motions on Northern Ireland:
	That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Devolution of Policing and Justice Functions) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved.
	That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Amendment of Schedule 3) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved.

Shaun Woodward: Today's business will enable the completion of devolution in Northern Ireland through the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont. The three orders before the House will give effect to the historic vote at Stormont on 9 March. The vast majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly voted to request the transfer of those powers, which was hoped for from the time of the Belfast agreement and envisaged in the St. Andrews agreement. An agreement on a timetable was reached at Hillsborough castle earlier this year.
	The completion of devolution will see the arrangements for sharing power fully realised on 12 April. It will ensure that local politicians in Northern Ireland can take responsibility for decisions that should and can be taken in Northern Ireland. Today we complete our responsibilities for the peace process and complete the political process for which we have responsibility, and we enable the Assembly at Stormont to complete its arrangements for full devolution.
	I am grateful to all those who have enabled us to reach this crucial moment in the history of Northern Ireland. I thank the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and all the Assembly party leaders in Northern Ireland, even if agreement was not quite unanimous last week. That Northern Ireland can today live with its disagreements and ensure that division is contained within democratic institutions sends a signal of how the political process and the peace process have transformed Northern Ireland. Today in Northern Ireland we can disagree, but we can be certain that politics will be the only way forward to reconcile disagreements. Today's Northern Ireland has demonstrated that politics has come of age, and when the will of a cross-community majority is respected, we know that we have succeeded.
	We could not have made such progress without the political will of right hon. and hon. Members of all parties and the Members of another place. Cross-party support has been essential, and that has been true for many years. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Irish and American Governments for their respective roles in helping to reach political agreement. I am sure the House will want to place on record its thanks especially to Secretary of State Clinton and the United States economic envoy for all that they have done, and continue to do, to bring the dividends of political agreement to people in every community in Northern Ireland.
	The three orders before us give effect to the devolution of policing and justice matters in Northern Ireland, in line with the framework set out in Acts of Parliament since the Good Friday agreement. They reflect the Hillsborough castle agreement and the request of the Assembly for the devolution of policing and justice responsibilities approved in its cross-community vote of 9 March.
	The Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Amendment of Schedule 3) Order 2010 is the key document. It provides for policing and justice matters, which until now have been reserved, to be transferred so that the Assembly can legislate on them without having to seek consent. The matters being transferred reflect the Assembly's request of 9 March. Some matters, such as national security, will remain excepted; some will remain reserved, one of which is parading. The Hillsborough castle agreement, however, envisages that responsibility for parading will transfer after a cross-community vote, once the proposed new and improved framework has been agreed and finalised.
	Also reserved is the special provision for 50:50 recruitment to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. We are confident that we shall reach our target of 30 per cent. Catholic composition by March of next year, and we are committed to returning to Parliament and ending the provision at whatever point in the year it becomes clear that we will reach that target. National security remains excepted under the order. It remains just that-national security-and it will remain the responsibility of UK Ministers, accountable to this House.
	The second order, the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Devolution of Policing and Justice Functions) Order 2010, makes a large number of amendments consequential on the changes in legislative competence. They largely involve the transfer to Northern Ireland authorities of executive functions, reflecting the transfer in legislative responsibility. The main recipient of those functions is the new Northern Ireland Department of Justice, which the Assembly has already legislated to establish.
	In the case of some functions that will transfer, there is potentially an interface with national security matters. That will remain the Secretary of State's responsibility. In those cases, the order makes clear the respective roles and responsibilities of the Northern Ireland Justice Minister and the Secretary of State. The order provides, in line with the Hillsborough castle agreement, that quasi-judicial decisions may be made by the Justice Minister, and need not go to the Northern Ireland Executive.
	The order also gives effect to various transfers of property and of most of the staff in the current Northern Ireland Office. Those staff will move to the Northern Ireland Department of Justice, leaving a small number who will continue to work to me as Secretary of State on my remaining responsibilities.
	Finally, the Northern Ireland Court Service (Abolition and Transfer of Functions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2010 transfers functions of the Court Service in Northern Ireland, which are currently the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, to the Northern Ireland authorities, generally the Department of Justice. The staff of the Court Service will also be assimilated into that Department.
	The orders will come into effect on 12 April, in line with the Hillsborough castle agreement. The Justice Department will be well provided for financially as part of the £800 million of additional money that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister promised for the new Justice Department. All but £26 million-2 per cent. of the Northern Ireland Office's current baseline budget-will transfer to the Northern Ireland Executive as will the entire Northern Ireland Court Service baseline budget. The Department will be well provided for in finance, people and ideas to carry forward its work.
	I readily acknowledge that not everyone was entirely satisfied by the outcome of the Hillsborough castle agreement. I believe that much of that dissatisfaction is unfounded, as the arrangements for the talks were designed to bring all the parties together in a process, which was designed from its inception to be inclusive. Even if, after 10 days, the talks were somewhat exhausting, I believe that, at the end of them, the agreement that we reached has allowed the peace process and the political process to be completed.
	I am particularly aware of the remaining concern about the arrangements for the Justice Department in May 2012, if there has not been further agreement on the ministerial model for that Department. However, as set out in the Northern Ireland Act 2009, the Department of Justice will dissolve on 1 May 2012 unless the Assembly has resolved on a cross-community basis to continue the current model for appointing the Justice Minister or passed an Act to put in place alternative arrangements.
	When Parliament passed the legislation in March 2009, the House was aware that the arrangements reflected agreement between the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister-specifically that the arrangements set out in their November 2008 statement should be time limited to end in May 2012.
	Clearly, further work is needed to agree the post-2012 arrangements. However, we should be optimistic. The parties, both at Hillsborough castle and more recently, have demonstrated their ability to meet far greater challenges and to work through all the obstacles that may be placed in their way.

Lady Hermon: I am so sorry to interrupt the Secretary of State, but will he just reassure the people at home about the Policing Board in particular? He knows that it has been very successful and that there is unfortunately some disquiet that, when a justice scrutiny committee is set up in the Assembly, it might inadvertently undermine the Policing Board's confidence, role and status. Will the Secretary of State please address that issue?

Shaun Woodward: The hon. Lady asks an important question. Like many questions that she has asked in the course of the past few months' work, it is to the point. The arrangements for the Policing Board, those with the Chief Constable and those that envisage the Assembly's setting up a committee were imagined in the Patten architecture. It was always envisaged that there would be an important relationship between the Policing Board, the Chief Constable, the Department of Justice and the committees that would be set up. I believe that that is properly outlined in the protocols and memorandums that we have supplied on policing architecture. Like Patten, I do not see that there would be a problem for the Chief Constable's independence, for the Police Service of Northern Ireland's operational capacity, for the Policing Board's fully representative functions of the political parties or for the scrutiny work to be carried out by an Assembly justice committee.
	It is, of course, for the Assembly to decide the functions of such a justice committee. However, I remind the hon. Lady that, as she knows well, that arrangement was always envisaged by Patten, and it is not a new addition by this Government or a new arrangement. I believe that it is quite possible to see how what is effectively a tripartite organisation will work effectively together in terms of the objectives of policing and scrutiny. Again, that matter will be resolved far more easily when the architecture is put in place in practice, which we will see after 12 April.
	As I was saying, we of course regret the decision by the Ulster Unionist party not to vote for the transfer with the rest of the Assembly in the cross-community vote on 9 March. That remains a matter of regret not just for me, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Government, but for many, not least the majority of the public and many of those who would have voted, or had intended to vote, for the Ulster Unionist party in future.
	If we look at the arrangements, however, we see that they inspire confidence. I congratulate all the Northern Ireland Assembly parties on establishing successful community confidence in the past few weeks. With the vote taken last week, it is time for all parties in Northern Ireland, and all Assembly Members from every party, to again put differences to one side and work together. The majority in the Assembly expressed its view last week, and I very much hope that that majority view will now be allowed to prevail. In that spirit, the task for all the parties in the Assembly and Executive is to ensure that all aspects of the settlement work most effectively for all the people from every community of Northern Ireland.
	To that end, one of the most important outcomes of the Hillsborough castle agreement was the decision by the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, who listened at Hillsborough castle to the concerns of all the Assembly parties, to improve the functioning of the Executive. It is very much to the credit of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister that as part of the Hillsborough castle agreement, a number of working parties were established precisely because they had listened to the concerns of the other Assembly parties as well as members of their own parties not only at Hillsborough, but in the previous months. That is why we welcome the role of Sir Reg Empey, along with that of the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, Margaret Ritchie, who will chair one of the working groups that has been specifically set up to enhance the effectiveness of the Executive.
	At Hillsborough, the parties also agreed to address and find consensus on remaining outstanding issues and existing problems. On parades, for example, the working group has already produced a report for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. It is appropriate to record in this House the support given by the Orange Order to the progress to date on, and the work to find local solutions to, parading issues and contentious parades, which has been established as a result of the work at Hillsborough castle.
	In short, I remain convinced that no outstanding issues are incapable of resolution in today's Stormont and today's shared-power Executive in Northern Ireland. None the less, a very small number of people in Northern Ireland, who are extremely dangerous, will never accept democracy and are the enemies of democracy. We have never said that the simple fact of completing devolution and taking responsibility will overnight remove the threat that those dangerous criminals continue to pose. However, as the Independent Monitoring Commission rightly said at the end of last year, early devolution will be a potent intervention, because it shows that politics is the only way ahead, and it demonstrates that it is possible to reconcile even the seemingly irreconcilable through dialogue and politics.
	The successful cross-community vote last week was the best signal that we could possibly send to those dissidents that however delusional their ambitions, they have no future in Northern Ireland. The PSNI and the Chief Constable will have the support of all Assembly Members, and continue to enjoy the support of all Members of this House and the other place and of the Government, in meeting the challenges ahead. The PSNI will have the resources that it needs, including an extra £28.7 million this year, ring-fenced-and at least £38 million next year-specifically to deal with the challenges posed by that small group of criminals who, I remind hon. Members, have little or no support in any of the communities in Northern Ireland. The policing structures are in place and the politics are in place.
	I have spoken of some of those who have played a leading part in the transformation of Northern Ireland. But in truth the real heroes of this remarkable story are the people of Northern Ireland whose indefatigable spirit and courage is exemplified in the words of Kate Carroll, whose husband Stephen was murdered by dissident republicans as he served the community exactly a year to the day before the vote on 9 March. Stephen's wife said:
	"It is time to move on. We are not in the past any more. We want to speak for ourselves. We want to rule ourselves. Just get up and get on with it".
	These orders will help Northern Ireland to do precisely that.

Owen Paterson: The Secretary of State has today made a written statement on the Saville inquiry. I thank him for that statement and the measured tones in which it is written. We endorse the arrangements that he proposes, but given the sensitive nature of the subject matter and the huge size of the report, it is not appropriate to publish it in the weeks before a general election, when the atmosphere becomes increasingly charged. We understand the frustrations of all those connected with the report about further delays, but we believe emphatically that it needs to be published and considered in a sober manner in the calmer weeks following the election.
	Turning to the orders, I am grateful to the Secretary of State for setting out the details today. I begin by paying tribute to the police, the judiciary and all those involved in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland over the past 40 years. They have often worked at great personal risk and many have suffered terribly, with some making the supreme sacrifice. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to everyone who ensured that the integrity of the criminal justice system was upheld.
	As the Secretary of State made clear, these orders give effect to the agreement reached between the DUP and Sinn Fein at Hillsborough on 5 February, and the vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly on 9 March. Once these orders pass through the House and the other place, the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Assembly will take place on 12 April. The last major element of the Belfast agreement, made almost 12 years earlier to the day, will have been completed. For the first time since the powers were taken away from the Northern Ireland Government in March 1972, Stormont will once again exercise powers over policing, criminal justice, the courts and local security issues.
	The Conservative party has long supported in principle the devolution of policing and justice powers. We said so as far back as 1998 in our submission to the Patten commission, and our view has not changed. These powers are best exercised in Northern Ireland by politicians accountable to the electorate there, not by Ministers in this House. That is why we supported legislation this time last year, even though we believed that it could have been improved with a little more time. It is why my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition met the First and Deputy First Ministers in the autumn and rapidly pledged that, should we win the election, we would honour the substantial post-dated financial package agreed by the Prime Minister.
	We welcomed the Hillsborough castle agreement, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition expressed his hope at the time that it would lead to the completion of devolution. Indeed, following the vote on 9 March, a spokesman for the US State Department referred to the constructive role played by the Opposition throughout the recent negotiations. At all times our overriding objective has been a peaceful, stable and prosperous Northern Ireland in which all its people have a shared future. Whether we remain in opposition or return to government in a few weeks, that is the approach that we shall continue to take. We therefore support the orders before the House today.

Alistair Carmichael: I commend the hon. Gentleman very much on the approach that he has outlined. The history in recent years is one in which Northern Ireland business has been approached in a non-partisan way, and I am delighted to hear that that will continue. May I therefore invite him to disown the remarks of one Ian Parsley, who I understand is a Conservative candidate in the constituency of North Down? He has commended the Ulster Unionists in a blog post on being alone in standing up for the people of Northern Ireland, saying:
	"The wide-ranging attacks on the Ulster Unionist Party for failing to back the devolution of justice prior to improvements in the functioning of the Executive are an example of the complete loss of morals that now typifies the 'Peace Process'."
	Surely that cannot be acceptable coming from a Conservative candidate.

Owen Paterson: I am most grateful for that intervention, but if the hon. Gentleman can restrain himself, I will return to the issue of the vote in a few moments.

Alistair Carmichael: What about Ian Parsley?

Owen Paterson: I will come to that.
	Even if any Member of this House had had misgivings about the vote on 9 March, they should remember that it represented the democratically expressed will of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Members of this House should have no business seeking to frustrate that; it is how devolution works across the United Kingdom. Equally, we should be careful in this House about seeking to force parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly into voting in a particular way. Devolution is about locally elected politicians using their judgment to make decisions on devolved issues in the best interests of Northern Ireland and based on their knowledge and experience. It is the role of Parliament to respect those democratic decisions and not to interfere. Of course, we could all use our influence, but ultimately, votes in the Assembly are for the Northern Ireland parties represented there to decide. That is a fundamental principle of how devolution works, and I trust that hon. Members in all parts of the House will continue to respect that.

Lady Hermon: I am the sole voice of the Ulster Unionist party in this House, and although I am happy to support the legislation this afternoon, I find myself in a minority position, because my party executive, my party leader and my Assembly colleagues have all voted against the devolution of policing and justice. I very much regret that. As policing and justice are currently reserved, can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what efforts his party leader, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), made in conversation with Sir Reg Empey, my party leader? Can the hon. Gentleman explain how often the leader of the Conservative party spoke to my party leader, and say how much effort was expended in trying to persuade the Ulster Unionists to support the devolution of policing and justice in the Assembly?

Owen Paterson: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for intervening, but I do not see why she cannot ask her party leader herself. I assure her that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) had several conversations with her party leader. However, as I have explained, we believe in devolution, and a national party in this place is in no position to force a local party to make a decision based on its own experience. Members of the Ulster Unionist party had a number of genuine and legitimate concerns-about education and the work of the Executive as a genuine four-party coalition-and it was the failure to deal with them satisfactorily that prevented the Ulster Unionists from backing the Assembly vote.
	The Ulster Unionists are not alone in expressing dismay at the lack of a genuine four-party coalition: the new leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party made the same points in Washington last week. We hope that those outstanding issues can now be resolved in a spirit of genuine partnership and compromise in the working group at Stormont. We cannot go on with two of the coalition partners feeling excluded from key decisions, which runs counter to the inclusive basis on which the power-sharing institutions were established. Our understanding is that the working group established under the Hillsborough castle agreement to look into the issue is currently stalled. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to agree with us that it is vital that we return to a genuine four-party coalition working as envisaged in the Belfast agreement?
	Once the devolution of policing and justice takes place next month, that issue will become more important than ever, if the transfer is to take place in a stable political environment. The imperative for all elected representatives is to ensure that devolution works to deliver effective law and order for the entire community in Northern Ireland. Of course, as the Secretary of State acknowledged, the immediate priority is to deal with the threat from dissident republicans. In recent weeks and months, they have increased their activities as they seek to bring death and destruction to Northern Ireland's streets and to drag us back into the past. Barely a day goes by without the bomb squad being called out, and as recently as last Saturday shots were fired at police investigating a suspect package near the railway line in Newry. They are at risk every day, and our thoughts are with Constable Heffron who remains seriously ill. It would be wrong to exaggerate the popular support for the dissidents; equally, it would be irresponsible to underestimate the danger that they present to the public. Will the Secretary of State clarify an important point? Under the new system, who will be responsible for requesting additional support for the civil power should that need arise?
	We share the hope that returning policing and justice powers to local politicians will lead to increasing isolation of the dissidents, who offer absolutely nothing to the people of Ireland, north and south. But the fullest support and backing of the police and the criminal justice system is required from everyone. Following devolution, any lingering reluctance to co-operate with the police must end. We welcome the acts of decommissioning in recent months, but tackling lawless criminality must also be a priority. People in Northern Ireland are concerned not just about paramilitary-related crime; in many neighbourhoods, they are concerned about the same issues that are far too commonplace on this side of the water, including antisocial and yobbish behaviour, lack of respect and so-called low-level crime, which blight people's lives.
	As the Executive take on their powers, a number of challenges lie ahead. The arrangements that will be put in place after 12 April are interim ones, and they will expire in May 2012. There will need to be a clear focus on establishing a permanent system following the next Assembly elections. Those matters will be for the Executive in the Assembly to decide, but in the absence of agreement before May 2012, what role is envisaged for the Secretary of State to ensure that policing and criminal justice continue to function properly?
	We should be clear today about what is not being devolved to the new Justice Minister. He or she will have neither the power to run the police, nor the right to interfere with the judiciary. The Police Service of Northern Ireland will remain under the control and direction of the Chief Constable, who is primarily accountable to the Policing Board. Operational independence, as the Prime Minister said in response to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in February, remains vital, and it will be preserved. Those with responsibility for the administration of justice are under a legal obligation to uphold the independence of the judiciary. Those are absolutely cardinal principles for policing and justice throughout the United Kingdom. They must apply equally to Northern Ireland, and I ask the Secretary of State to reaffirm that we will not tolerate any political interference in such matters.
	These developments in the police process are significant. They were begun by the previous Conservative Government and taken forward by the current Government. Our sincere hope is that with devolution complete, politicians in the Assembly will begin to focus on the other issues that really matter to the people of Northern Ireland.

William Cash: Does my hon. Friend believe that the outcome of the Bloody Sunday inquiry will destabilise any of the arrangements on the ground as far as the order is concerned?

Owen Paterson: My hon. Friend may not have been here when I commented on that in my opening remarks. Some sensitive matters will be published in what will be an enormous document, and we would like it to be published after the general election in a calm and sober atmosphere, when it can be considered in its entirety. It would be inappropriate to publish that significant report as we build up to a general election, when the atmosphere will be anything but calm.

Peter Bottomley: Does my hon. Friend agree that although we will not know the report's conclusions until after the election, proceedings were, despite their length, held in an open way with the stenographer's notes available to all, and that little in the report will not already be known to people?

Owen Paterson: It would be inappropriate for any of us to prejudge the inquiry, but I repeat-I think, for the third time-that it is most important that this significant report is published in a calm atmosphere, and I propose that it is published after the election.
	To sum up, it is our sincere hope that, with devolution complete, politicians in the Assembly will begin to focus on the other issues that really matter to people in Northern Ireland. It is important to get policing and justice right, but people on the ground are also concerned about key issues such as jobs, health, transport, schools and social deprivation. It is only through making progress on all those issues that devolution will be shown to have worked. We will support the orders today, and we wish the Assembly and the Executive well in exercising their new powers.

Mark Durkan: I rise to express my support for the orders before us today, consistent with what has already been approved in the Assembly in relation to taking devolution forward towards its fuller, more rounded completion. Those of us who took part in the negotiation of the Good Friday agreement-and in its early, faltering implementation-are glad that we are now looking at the consummation of the new politics and the new beginning for policing, both of which derive from that agreement. It has been a hard and difficult course, which has involved taking institutions through all sorts of uncertainties and stalemates, as well as various suspensions and collapses, and taking the controversies surrounding the Patten report and driving and delivering its successful implementation, in spite of opposition and harassment from others-not least Sinn Fein and its supporters.
	To have reached a point at which we can see the devolution of justice and policing powers, alongside the other competences of the Assembly and the Executive, is a significant achievement and development. Many of us have pursued those goals in the various negotiations that have taken place since the Good Friday agreement. Those have included the Mitchell review, the Hillsborough talks, the further talks at Castle Buildings and the discussions at Leeds castle and in various other places here and there. We have always argued for implementation calendars that included setting a clear timetable for the devolution of justice and policing, among other things. We therefore welcome the fact that we are now, finally, making moves in that direction.
	These, and other issues, were addressed in the negotiations at St. Andrews. Coming out of those negotiations, certain false claims were made that the devolution of justice and policing was guaranteed by May 2008. That was clearly not the case, however. We in the Social Democratic and Labour party told the truth about that; Sinn Fein, however, lied about it to many, many people. Notwithstanding all the difficulties that were experienced then and since, we are now making welcome progress.
	That progress is not complete, however. Some Members here have talked about the completion of the devolution of justice and policing, but we are not seeing a complete transfer of those powers. Indeed, the orders today reveal that certain matters remain reserved and excepted. Questions will arise, not only about the relationship between the Minister of Justice, the Executive and the wider Assembly, as they did at Hillsborough, but about the interface between devolved and non-devolved powers. We, as legislators, need to acknowledge that fact today.

William Cash: The hon. Gentleman has a long, distinguished record of fighting hard for his cause. In the light of what he is saying, and of the whole concept of devolution, where does he believe that devolution would end and home rule begin?

Mark Durkan: I had better not start on the issue of home rule. In Ireland, history is current affairs, but I shall try to keep to more current affairs in relation to these matters. The hon. Gentleman has raised a fair point, however, and I was going to touch on a number of the questions that are still likely to arise.
	We want to give the public confidence that the devolution of justice and policing is complete and that we are faithfully delivering on Patten and on the political institutions as envisaged by the agreement, but questions will arise about some of the residual matters that have not been fully and properly transferred to the control of the devolved institutions. There are a number of examples.
	This House passed the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. Among its controversial provisions is the continuing facility for no-jury courts in Northern Ireland, which was a breach of a previous commitment by this Government to ensure that all the emergency legislation would be repealed. We saw instruments to let those powers go by the wayside, but then we saw a number of those emergency provisions recycled in the 2007 Act-for example, giving the Army powers of search and arrest, which are not subject to the police ombudsman and do not have to be a matter of record for the police, even though any such police powers do have to be a matter of full record.
	Particularly controversial were the provisions for no-jury trials-not on the basis of the old Diplock system relating to certain scheduled offences, but on the basis of a new system whereby the Director of Public Prosecutions would issue certificates, which could not be challenged in a court, or indeed by a court. The power to change the legislation that provided for the ability to issue those certificates for no-jury trials does not transfer to the Assembly, but remains here in this House.
	In this scenario, someone might face a charge and the DPP might issue a certificate for a no-jury trial. The DPP's grounds for doing so might be that the person is or was a member of an illegal organisation or is or was a friend, relative or associate of such a person, or that they or an illegal organisation might interfere with the due process of law by intimidating witnesses and so forth. Those are the grounds on which the DPP can issue the certificate, but in issuing it, he specifies no grounds and the person is effectively unable to challenge or question because these decisions are not in any way judicially reviewable.
	We thus see the possibility of someone faced with such a certificate writing to a devolved Minister to say, "You are the Minister for Justice. My lawyer and I are being told that this is going to a no-jury trial and I have no means of contesting this. You are the Minister of Justice, so how can you stand over this? After all, we are told that everything in Northern Ireland has changed, moved on and gone to normalisation. What is being done about this?" The Justice Minister will say, "I am powerless to do anything about this" and the matter will go before the Assembly committee responsible for dealing with justice matters. It will say the same thing: "Yes, it is happening in our courts; yes, it is a certificate issued by an officer, namely the DPP, who is appointed under devolution and is meant to be working under the authority and auspices of devolution, but this power exists under an entirely ulterior, unaccountable and unquestionable basis". The fact that the Assembly and the Justice Minister are not even in a position to question that gives rise to further questions about the completeness of devolution.
	Another example is where the Director of Public Prosecutions might be instructed by the Advocate General for Northern Ireland-namely, the Attorney-General in London, who will become the Advocate General for Northern Ireland whenever Northern Ireland gets its own Attorney-General. If trials collapse or are withdrawn on grounds of national security or on the very wide and specious grounds of the "public interest" under the direction of the Advocate General for Northern Ireland, again nobody will be able to question it and the Justice Minister will again be, at best, an idle spectator, left to plead ignorance and impotence as to why. It might be on a matter of public controversy or in a very significant case such as the Denis Donaldson case of a few years ago. When that collapsed, all sorts of parties and all sorts of people were asking all sorts of questions-why has this happened; why do we not know?
	In how credible a position are the devolved Administration, not only the Justice Minister, going to be if they say, "We don't know; this is not devolved to us; there is nothing we can do. We cannot ask, we cannot be told and even if some of us are told, there is nothing we can say anyway"? That does not square with the vision of accountable devolution to which we all subscribed when we supported the agreement and as we have developed the institutions in the years since then. That is an important issue, which needs to be taken into account when we consider the limitations.
	When we were involved in the Hillsborough talks, as well as addressing all the other issues relating to the relationship between the Minister and the Executive and making submissions, both written and oral, about various matters including the work of the Executive, we raised questions about the interface between devolved and non-devolved areas. One issue that arises in that context is relevant to the orders, to the associated documents relating to concordats and handling arrangements, and to the annexe on arrangements. A couple of agreements between the British and Irish Governments have been thrown in as well. Parts of those documents, and part of the main order with which we are dealing, impose serious restrictions related to national security on what information can be shared, how it can be shared, and where competence and control lie.
	The Minister of State, who will reply to the debate, has heard me speak about these issues many times both publicly and privately, and he knows that the SDLP has had profound misgivings for many years. As a party that was totally committed to the Patten vision of policing, we were committed to the idea that the lead on intelligence policing in Northern Ireland should rest with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. That is what Patten recommended. He recognised that there would be national security issues that would have to be reported to the Secretary of State or a successor Minister, but he made clear his belief that, because of the history and experience of policing in Northern Ireland, the PSNI should take the lead.
	That, of course, changed. The Government announced their intention a number of years ago, and got away with confirming the change during the St Andrews negotiations on the basis of the Blair-Adams document. The document conceded that MI5 would have a remit in Northern Ireland, that it would take the lead in intelligence policing, and that issues relating to intelligence policing would thenceforth be immune from any scrutiny following an investigation by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, which had not been the case previously. That was significant in the context of, for instance, the investigation by the ombudsman of the handling of the Omagh bombing. All those changes have made an important difference in terms of scrutiny and accountability.
	A family in my constituency recently lost a son, partner, nephew and brother to members of the Real IRA, who murdered him. They left him stripped to his underwear with his hands taped behind his back, having shot him twice in the head. It was a very chilling old Provo execution-style killing. The family, of course, totally repudiate and condemn the Real IRA for what it has done and said, but they have also raised very serious questions about the experience to which the man had been subjected at the hands of MI5 agents who were active in and around Derry.
	This is not some fanciful notion that I have conjured up about the possibility of concerns in the future. These are not theoretical concerns, but real concerns. That man's partner told me in her grief at the wake that she had written a letter which she had not yet posted before he died. The letter, addressed to the Minister of State, expressed her concern about what was happening to her partner-the harassment to which he was being subjected, and the offers that were made to him. Mobile phones were thrown into his car, and he was told "Ring Justin-Justin will be in touch with you soon." She has said to me, as has Mr. Doherty's uncle and father, that it was not just people who were comporting themselves as MI5 agents who were doing this; they are saying that members of the PSNI, or people appearing in PSNI uniform, also were stating to them that they knew that this was going on and were giving advice to contact "Justin" and saying that he would be in touch. This raises fundamental concerns about whether or not policing will be transacted and conducted in the light of all the Patten principles and all the Patten promises, so we still have deep reservations about this dangerous twilight zone that exists in relation to the interface between national security, the regional policing interest and the full accountability of devolution.
	Many of us saw the old Peter Sellers Clouseau movies. In one of them-I cannot remember which one-Clouseau approaches a man who is sitting with a dog and asks, "Does your dog bite?" The man replies, "No, my dog doesn't bite", so Clouseau goes to pat the dog, which then nearly bites his arm off. Clouseau says, "I thought you told me that your dog did not bite", to which the man replies, "That is not my dog." I do not believe that those of us who believe in the devolution of justice and policing and who want it to be clear and complete can fall for that excuse, so where we have reservations that devolution is not clean enough or complete enough we have the right to state that here today.
	The Secretary of State also talked about these arrangements inspiring confidence. The steps that we are taking reflect much wider and growing confidence, but there are limitations to the extent to which some of the arrangements, in themselves, inspire confidence. I am thinking in particular about one for which this House has legislated and which has continued to be defended in Northern Ireland by the two main parties: the curious sunset clause that exists in relation to the new Justice Department that will be created as a result of these orders and the other instruments that have been passed elsewhere. That sunset clause tells us that unless there is an agreement to continue with the arrangement currently envisaged of electing a Minister by virtue of cross-community support, rather than appointing a Minister under the d'Hondt system as per the agreement, and to renew it beyond 2012 or replace it with something else, the Justice Department will dissolve in May 2012. That is provided for in legislation passed by this House last year.
	We are talking about these steps inspiring confidence, so why do we not have enough confidence to do away with that accident-the breakdown and collapse-waiting to happen which is represented by that sunset clause? If people believe that this agreement represents-I shall use the Prime Minister's words-an
	"end to decades of strife"
	and guarantees stability, why do we need a sunset clause that represents an invitation to huge instability? That danger does not just lie in May 2012, when the sunset clause would apply; the difficulty could kick in earlier. The sunset clause obviously relates to the fact that the Democratic Unionist party was determined to have a veto at all times on the appointment of a Justice Minister. Sinn Fein had at one point conceded that, but when it finally woke up to the permanent veto that it had conceded, it had to claw that back. The best that Sinn Fein could do by way of clawing it back was to put in a limitation by virtue of the sunset clause.
	This is now already a matter of a little difference and contention between Sinn Fein and the DUP. Even in recent weeks, as the DUP has been selling the Hillsborough agreement, the DUP has been advertising the sunset clause in 2012 and saying, "We will ensure that not only will we have a veto now to prevent someone from Sinn Fein from being appointed Justice Minister, but we will defend and insist on that veto beyond 2012." Meanwhile Sinn Fein is, of course, saying that it will reject and resist that veto in May 2012, and will not agree to any such thing continuing thereafter. The chances are that come the next Assembly election, scheduled for May 2011- although it could be before then, of course-those two parties will set out manifesto claims and calls on these matters. We might find that after that election there is a delay in electing a Justice Minister under the scheme that we have at the minute as they test each other out on those issues. So we could have a Department without a Minister in 2011 and then, of course, we could have a Minister without a Department in May 2012.
	Those are not just political questions about what sort of crisis there might be in the Assembly and about whether or not we have a Minister. We should remember what it means for the Department to be dissolved. Under one of the orders, the Northern Ireland Court Service, for instance, will be abolished and will become part of the Department of Justice. It will not be a freestanding service in its own right-it will be part of the Department. Of course, the House already has legislation that states that the Department could be dissolved in 2012. Similarly, the Northern Ireland Prison Service is not a separate non-departmental public body or a separate freestanding agency. We call it the Northern Ireland Prison Service, but it is simply a part of the Northern Ireland Office, as is reflected in the orders that we are passing today. Similar facts apply to the Youth Justice Agency and the Compensation Agency. If the Department is dissolved in May 2012, as has been provided for already and as continues to be provided for in legislation, what will happen to all those functions? How are they to be exercised?
	Although the Secretary of State has said today that there are no outstanding issues that are incapable of resolution, I would say that there are outstanding issues that still need further resolution. Although we have progress today, we need to go further and we need to see more.
	In spite of all the reservations that I have rehearsed-there are many more that hon. Members will be glad to hear I shall not rehearse-we, nevertheless, are determined that we must go forward with the devolution of justice and policing. We cannot make perfection a precondition for progress. Too often, politics in Northern Ireland has been marred by people insisting that objectives-often very good objectives-should be turned into preconditions. That has turned out to be a self-frustrating stance. That is not the position that we have taken. In spite of our many reservations about the conduct of the Assembly and of the Executive, we are clear and unambiguous about where we need to go with the devolution of justice and policing. We want to go further.
	We also want to place on record the fact that, like others, we have our criticisms of how the process has been conducted and managed-of the heavy focus on the positions of Sinn Fein and the DUP and of the complete aberration from the rules of democratic inclusion laid down in the agreement. That has provided for one party and the whole d'Hondt process to be bypassed for the appointment of the Justice Minister.
	The original Stormont regime in the 1920s interfered with key provisions for proportional representation that were laid down for local government-those were abolished. Then they did away with the provisions for proportional representation in the Stormont Parliament. We have some concern that in this Stormont regime the parties in power have begun to do away with the provisions for proportional inclusion in the Executive. They have come up with a different scheme that allows them to deny parties that are entitled by mandate and to appoint parties that are not on the basis of patronage or other favour. In the old days, that was called gerrymandering. In these days, it is called an historic agreement-indeed, Sinn Fein calls it the best agreement ever. I record that fact not just out of concern for our own party's position or plight, but as a matter of principle.
	I want to underline that, as regards the concerns that I have outlined about the limitations of devolution, I feel for anyone-of whatever party-who will be the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland and will find themselves coming up against some of those difficulties and challenges. They will find themselves in an invidious position. In dealing with difficulties and challenges such as those that I have outlined and in dealing with the challenges caused-as the Secretary of State has rightly emphasised -by the ongoing nefarious activity of so-called republican dissidents and others, whoever is the Minister responsible for justice and policing will certainly have the support of our party in doing the job of representing the Northern Ireland Administration and the Northern Ireland Assembly in dealing with and coping with those challenges, as we must. Whatever other quibbles or issues we have, I want to make sure that nobody will be able to turn any difficulty or difference between us and anyone else into anything that could be exploited to create any wider instability or to undermine the credibility of the institutions in Northern Ireland.

Alistair Carmichael: May I crave your indulgence for a minute, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I wish to place on record, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) did in relation to the report of the Saville inquiry, the fact that I, too, have received correspondence from the Secretary of State, subsequent to the written statement that he placed before the House. The arrangements that he outlined in that statement, and the reasons for making them, seem to me entirely sensible and legitimate. He certainly has the support of the Liberal Democrats in taking these matters forward in the way that he has outlined.
	The hon. Member for North Shropshire did not avail himself of the opportunity to disown the comments of the Conservative candidate for North Down, which is unfortunate given the importance of this matter. I suspect that North Down must be an interesting place to be these days.

Lady Hermon: Very.

Alistair Carmichael: We have a Conservative who supports the Unionist position rather than that of his own Front Benchers, and we have a Unionist MP who apparently supports the position of the Conservative Front Benchers. I have only ever been a member of the Liberals or the Liberal Democrats, but if I were a member of the Ulster Unionists who had enjoyed the representation of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) and I then found Mr. Parsley taking her place, I might feel a little short-changed. The hon. Lady has been a hard-working, effective and articulate representative for her community since 2001. I do not know what her future intentions are, but I think there is broad consensus across the House in wishing her well.
	The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made a very interesting and thoughtful speech, much of which was conjecture about the politics of how the devolution of criminal justice might evolve. In that respect, this subject could more properly be discussed by the parties in Northern Ireland rather than by Members such as I in this House. I was very interested in his remarks about the interface between devolved criminal justice and reserved national security matters. This is not unique to these islands. We have had devolved criminal justice in Scotland since 1999, but it has quite properly remained the case that matters of national security are dealt with by the Government here in Westminster and Whitehall. Some of his concerns are capable of being addressed if he bears in mind two factors. First, the independence of Law Officers is supremely important. As he has said, the Director of Public Prosecutions plays a central role in this issue. I first met the current DPP when I was a trainee solicitor in Edinburgh, more years ago than I care to remember, and he is a man of unimpeachable independence. I hope that that independence will be respected by the Governments here and in Belfast.
	The importance of Law Officers being independent in these circumstances is that it is a significant protection for the rights of the individual, about which the hon. Member for Foyle expressed some concern. The accountability aspects are also legitimate concerns, but I remind him that people in Northern Ireland have a direct line of accountability through the representation provided by him, his colleagues and hon. Members of all parties. They must do the job that they are elected to do-to be here at Westminster and hold to account for their decisions by the Government here and their agencies, as far as that is possible with matters of national security.

Mark Durkan: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that proposals like this have been put to us before? My party was told at the St. Andrews negotiations that our concerns about national security could be met if we took seats on this Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. We were told that that would mean that we had accountability, but that of course is absolute nonsense. The idea that we would satisfy our constituents, given their experience of these issues and the suspicions that are out there, merely through belonging to something like the ISC here would not convince anyone.

Alistair Carmichael: I think that the hon. Gentleman goes too far when he says that that proposition is "absolute nonsense", but I certainly grant him that it is a less than complete solution. It is a compromise of a sort that we have all had to learn to live with over the years. When it comes to matters of national security, the normal rules of accountability do not apply; indeed, it is not reasonable for us to expect them to apply in the way that they do to other Departments dealing with health, education or any other business of Government.
	There is a compromise to be struck here. No solution will ever be perfect, and the problem is especially difficult when it comes to dealing with the interface between devolved and reserved government in the absence of any overarching constitutional framework.
	In many ways, this is devolution by salami slicing, but problems must be capable of resolution on a case-by-case, day-by-day basis. That can happen if those engaged in resolving problems and making the devolution settlement work approach their task in good faith.
	The orders before the House are very much to be welcomed, as they cement in place the final piece of devolution-namely, the devolution of criminal justice. They reflect the wishes of the Northern Ireland Assembly, as expressed earlier this month by a cross-community vote. They represent a significant step, a step that one hopes is the last in the journey.
	As the hon. Member for Foyle reminded us, however, there are a number of elements that could still go wrong. That is a matter for the parties in Northern Ireland: whether they make the structure there work or not is up to them. I have always believed in devolution-as a Liberal I have always believed in home rule, although I hesitate to say so, given the loaded nature of the words in the Northern Ireland context-and I welcome the challenge. I hope that those who are now left to pick up the baton in Belfast will approach their task from the point of view that they, too, are determined to make devolution work.
	In many ways, the devolution of the criminal justice system to the Assembly in Belfast should allow better government in many other aspects of life. Before I came to this House as a Member of Parliament, I earned my living as a solicitor working in the criminal courts. One cannot underestimate the extent to which criminal justice interacts with health, education, social work and many other aspects of Government business. To try to operate them without having criminal justice under the same umbrella has never made sense to me. I think that these proposals will lead not just to comprehensive devolution but to better governance for the people of Northern Ireland.
	That is the prize now available to the people of Northern Ireland-better governance, integrated government, joined-up government, to use the somewhat hackneyed expression. It is up to them whether they take it. I believe and I hope that they have the capability to do so. We offer the orders a fair wind as they leave the House.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate. I declare an interest as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I apologise on behalf of our party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson). He is on his way here. He had to participate in First Minister's questions in the Assembly this afternoon and was delayed, but hopes to join us before the end of the debate.
	There have been many occasions during my time as a Member of Parliament when I have opposed legislation that was being introduced on Northern Ireland, because I had concerns about that legislation and its impact on the people whom I represent. I am glad to be here today to support the orders at a critical juncture in the development of Northern Ireland in what we hope and expect will be a more peaceful environment for the people who live there.
	Sadly, at the weekend we had more examples of the fact that there remains within our community a tiny element who cannot accept the prospect of peace, who cannot accept that politics is a way to resolve our differences, who cannot accept the will of the people, whose desire is for peace and progress, and who continue to engage in acts of violence. We had the gun attack in Newry on police officers investigating a suspect device, and there were other incidents in various parts of Northern Ireland. We do well to remind ourselves that the task that we are engaged in is dear to the hearts of many in Northern Ireland. It is about making progress and moving away from the dark days of the past.
	It saddens me that there are still some who want to drag us back to those dark days. They offer no hope to the people of Northern Ireland. They were at it again last week, with their disruption in Belfast, Londonderry and other places, trying to drive away investment at a time when Northern Ireland Ministers were in Washington winning investment, winning jobs for our young people, and offering them the hope that for decades they did not have, when they had to leave Northern Ireland in their droves to find employment and seek the opportunities that we could not provide for them. Now that we are providing them, let us hope that the young people will remain, will see that there is a future, and will not allow the men of violence to drive them away from their homes, their families and the prospect of employment and a better future.
	In the end, that is what we are about. We talk about politics, policing and justice, but what matters to the people who live in Lagan Valley whom I represent, and those who live in North Antrim and North Down, is that their families have the hope of a better future, their children have the hope of a good education, they have a good quality of life, and yes, they can go about their business without having to look over their shoulder and wonder whether they will be the next victim of a bomb or a shooting. Thankfully, we have moved a long way from those times.
	I say to the men of violence-to those who would seek to use the gun and the bomb once again to try and drag us back-that I believe the resolve is there among the politicians and the people not to allow them to succeed. Today is another indication that we will not allow them to succeed. Some of the difficulties that we face have been mentioned; the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) highlighted some of them. When we look at the legacy of the past, there is still an enormous job to be done as we seek to deal with the things that have happened and address the sense of injustice felt by many in Northern Ireland.
	I remind the House that we have almost 3,000 unsolved murders in Northern Ireland. That is one of the terrible aspects of the troubles that beset Northern Ireland for more than three decades. We have many who still wait for justice-and have not yet been given that justice.
	The legislation before the House is important, just as the legislation before the Northern Ireland Assembly previously was important. Indeed, we welcomed the Assembly's decision a couple of weeks ago, and my party was pleased to be there and support the motion that was brought before that House. For sure, some in Northern Ireland continue to have reservations and doubts, and I understand where they are coming from. Many in Northern Ireland support with reluctance the political progress that has been made, and their reluctance is not because they do not want things to move forward, but because there are still dark memories. There is still a lot of pain and hurt, which we need to deal with, and when they look at some in government they wonder, understandably, whether they can yet fully trust the new political dispensation.
	As someone who has seen the impact of the violence on families, on the people whom I represent, on my own family and on comrades with whom I had the privilege of serving in the Ulster Defence Regiment, I understand where people are coming from, yet I know that there is no alternative but to move the process forward. Difficult and challenging though it is, we must offer to this generation and to the next the hope of something better. If that means that we have to work with people with whom we have difficulties and have had differences, and if that is the price that we have to pay for the hope of peace in Northern Ireland, it is a price that I, my party and others have been willing to pay.
	The process is founded on important principles, however, because we ensured that, before the Government who now exist in Northern Ireland were formed, every party to that Government would support the rule of law and the police. Sinn Fein, among others, has given that support to the police and recognised that the rule of law is the only way forward in Northern Ireland. We welcome that. Belated conversion though it may be, it is nevertheless progress and we must keep building on it. That is why we feel the time now is right to proceed with the devolution of those important powers.
	Like the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), I was disappointed that the Ulster Unionist party was not able to support the devolution of policing and justice powers at this time, and in reality its stance had more to do with what it perceived to be a party political advantage, given that an election is coming, than with a principled position. Indeed, the party said that in principle it supported the devolution of those powers; it just felt that the time was not right.
	The Secretary of State referred to the words of Kate Carroll, the widow of Constable Stephen Carroll, the last police officer to be murdered by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland. When we listened to what she had to say on the anniversary of her husband's murder, I wished that all parties had, because she said that we have to move forward and take responsibility for our own affairs. How right she is, because that is the basis for providing the stability on which Northern Ireland can become strong, its people can become strong, and trust and confidence can be firmly established.
	At the time of Constable Carroll's death, and indeed at the time of the murder of the two soldiers at Massereene barracks in Antrim, the Assembly stood united against those outrages-against those atrocities. It is a matter of regret that the Assembly could not have stood united when it came to taking the decision on the transfer of policing and justice powers, but I hope that in time the Ulster Unionist party will come to support the devolution of those important powers.

William Cash: But, with a general election coming, does the right hon. Gentleman believe that a substantial body of the electorate will support the views that he has expressed?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I believe-certainly, it is my experience-that a clear majority of people support the devolution of those powers and a clear majority of people in Northern Ireland want to see political progress being made. They recognise that there are difficulties, as we have heard rehearsed in the Chamber this afternoon, particularly in relation to the working of the Executive. However, I share the Secretary of State's view that now that we are getting over this perhaps most challenging of hurdles, things will settle down and we will be able to concentrate on the bread-and-butter issues that matter to the people we represent. I hope that we will have the four parties working together more cohesively within that Executive, because that is what people want to happen: they want to see devolution delivering for them on those bread-and-butter issues.
	It is my expectation that there is majority support for this process. I can certainly say that those who will stand in the forthcoming election on a manifesto of dragging us back to the past and tearing down the Assembly have nothing to offer the people of Northern Ireland. They offer no alternative, and they have no viable solution to the problems that beset us. They are the nay-sayers: their approach is entirely negative. What hope do they offer to the young people of Northern Ireland today? I hope that people will not listen to that negativity but will recognise that whatever the difficulties we face, the way forward is through supporting the devolution of these powers and supporting the Assembly and the political stability that it can bring to Northern Ireland. We welcome the range of powers that are being devolved to the Assembly, while recognising that some powers will be reserved to this Parliament.
	As regards the comments by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the appointment of a Minister of Justice, we are very clear that this is about public confidence, and in our view there would not be public confidence in the appointment of a Sinn Fein Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland. We have to reflect that reality, and that is why we have introduced the arrangements that we have to ensure that whoever is appointed Minister of Justice has cross-community support in the Assembly.
	We want to move Northern Ireland towards a more normal form of Government. At a British-Irish Association conference that I attended last year, the hon. Member for Foyle talked about removing the ugly scaffolding of the Belfast agreement. I think that that is important. We will certainly go all the way with him on that objective, because we believe that normalising the politics of Northern Ireland is an integral part of the peace process. In future, we want to move towards what we hope will be a more voluntary form of coalition where parties come together to negotiate a programme for Government on a voluntary basis, and then establish that Government, together with an effective Opposition, because that is how democracy operates and should operate.
	That is the way forward as we see it, and we want to move towards that more normalised situation. The cross-community vote mechanism is part of normalising our politics and part of moving towards that kind of system.

Alasdair McDonnell: The right hon. Gentleman said that there would not be public confidence in a Sinn Fein Minister of Justice. Is he implying, along the same lines, that there would not be public confidence in a Social Democratic and Labour party Minister of Justice?

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I am not implying that there would not be public confidence, but it is a matter for the SDLP to put its candidate forward to see whether it can get sufficient support within the Assembly to become Minister of Justice. We will look at the candidates who come before us, and the party will vote accordingly in the Assembly when the time comes.
	The Secretary of State mentioned parading. I had the privilege of co-chairing the working group that was established to consider parades in the aftermath of the Hillsborough agreement. We were set a very tight deadline by the First Minister, who has now joined us in the Chamber, yet we were able to get to a point where we agreed a report that is now being worked on by the parliamentary draftsmen. We hope to have the draft Bill ready for consultation by the end of this month. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East said earlier today, it will probably be the most consulted on piece of legislation that the Assembly will have brought forward in its existence. That is good, because parading is an important issue and we want the legislation to be put in place so that there are new mechanisms and a new system for dealing with parades that will create a level playing field and be based on people's rights, not on prejudice, as has been the case in the past. We want a shared future in Northern Ireland.

Mark Durkan: On the right hon. Gentleman's point about the report that has emerged from the working group on parades, was it not the case that the Hillsborough agreement promised us that there would be consultation on that report, and then legislation would be prepared? In fact, the report is going straight into legislation and only then will there be consultation.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I am very clear about what the Hillsborough agreement said, and it most certainly did not say that there would be consultation after the report was prepared. What it did say was that there would be consultation during the preparation of the report, which was what we undertook to do and carried out. Indeed, we met representatives of the hon. Gentleman's party on at least one occasion and received written representations from them on a number of occasions, which were taken into account in finalising our report. We made it clear in the timetable, as Hillsborough set out distinctly, that as soon as the report was agreed, it would be presented to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and that the task of drafting legislation would get under way. That task is now moving towards completion. The Bill will be published and there will be a full consultation period before it is enacted by the Assembly.
	We welcome the proposed changes to parading and believe that they will provide a basis for dealing with the issue that is fairer and based on respect for the rights of those who want to engage in a parade or public assembly.

Peter Robinson: Is it not the case that the work of the working group that was set up to deal with parades has not been completed, because the draftsmen are raising a series of detailed and technical issues that need to be determined before the final document is available for consultation? It would be wrong to consult on an uncompleted document.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I thank my right hon. Friend for that comment, and he is right. The working group's representatives are meeting the draftsmen several times each week in various formats to deal with those technical issues, which is why we are not yet in a position to publish the final work. We anticipate that that will happen at the end of this month.
	Reference has been made to the retention by Parliament of the power to provide for what is called 50:50 recruitment to the PSNI. As the Secretary of State will know, my party has consistently opposed that measure, because we believe that state discrimination is wrong in any circumstance. Although we share the Government's objective to increase the level of representation within the PSNI of the Roman Catholic side of the community, we believe that the provision is a very blunt instrument. It leaves a lot of young people who would otherwise qualify to become police officers, and who pass all the tests and enter the merit pool, unable to do so simply because of the church they attend on a Sunday. We certainly cannot agree to that.

Lady Hermon: I should like to put it on record that, although earlier in the debate I expressed support for the Conservative position on the devolution of policing and justice, I was hideously disappointed that the Conservative party voted in support of 50:50 recruitment. The Ulster Unionist party differs once again from the Conservative party and we are firmly opposed to 50:50 recruitment.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which raises a curious question. If members of the UUP had been elected to this House and taken the Conservative Whip, would they have voted in favour of extending a power that they say they have consistently opposed in principle throughout its enactment? It will be interesting to see how that works out in future. I wish to put it on the record that although the power is reserved to Parliament, we will continue to oppose its exercise in principle.
	The hon. Lady mentioned the potential conflict between the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the scrutiny committee that the Assembly will establish. I understand her concern, which others outside the House have echoed. However, the scrutiny committee will have a much broader remit than the Policing Board in that it will cover all aspects of the Justice Department, not only policing. Its role is different from that of the board in that it will, among other things, play a part in scrutinising proposed legislation from the Justice Department. Its scope in respect of the Chief Constable's operational responsibility will probably be limited. Although it will take time for those things to be worked out, there may be a basis for establishing some sort of protocol between the board, the committee and the Assembly about the way in which they pursue their respective functions.

Mark Durkan: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again-he has been generous. Does he recognise that the concerns relate not only to the position of the Policing Board but to the role of the Chief Constable? There was concern that some previous drafts of the protocols spoke of the Chief Constable becoming the chief adviser to the Minister on policing and security matters, and that that would qualify or regulate the Chief Constable's clear independent role and its integrity, making the Chief Constable somehow subsidiary to a Minister. The Patten dispensation certainly did not envisage that.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: We are clear that the Chief Constable's operational independence will not be open to interference by the Minister. The lines on that are clear and have been firmly established. Of course, the Chief Constable will be there to advise the Minister about matters that fall within the Minister's remit, but that does not give the Minister the right to interfere in operational matters.
	We support the orders. We believe that accepting them is the right move to make at an important time in the development of Northern Ireland politics.
	A few weeks ago, I attended a memorial in Newry, which is now a city. It experienced some horrible things; terrible atrocities were committed there during the troubles. For example, we remember the three police officers who were murdered by an IRA gang while they conducted community duties in the town centre. Ironically, the IRA gang wore butchers' uniforms as they carried out those assassinations-the execution of the three officers. We have just passed the 25th anniversary of the mortar attack on Newry police station, when nine Royal Ulster Constabulary officers lost their lives-the highest loss of life sustained by the RUC in one incident during the troubles. One of those officers was Chief Inspector Alexander Donaldson, my cousin, who had lost his brother, Constable Samuel Donaldson, who was murdered by the IRA in Crossmaglen in August 1970-the first RUC officer to be murdered by the Provisional IRA.
	I therefore recognise the difficulties and challenges that such decisions present to people in Northern Ireland. However, as I stood in that service in Newry and listened to the long list of names of those brave men and women who had given their lives in defence of our community so that we might have the hope of peace some day in Northern Ireland, I was reminded of why we do what we do. I was reminded that the task that has been given to us as political leaders and politicians is to help to secure that better future and build on the work of those brave men and women who held the line when politics was not working and there was no agreement on how we would settle our differences. Thankfully, we now have a broad measure of agreement and it is our duty and responsibility to ensure that what we have done succeeds, that the progress we have made is built on, and that those who sacrificed their lives did not do so in vain.
	That does not make right the terrible wrongs that terrorist organisations did in Northern Ireland over the years. It does not justify the terrible actions that they carried out against members of the security forces and civilians and the countless lives that were lost during that period. That is to be condemned; such actions and the terrorists' motivation is not the way to settle our differences. This is the way to do it: by creating political stability and a Government who enable local people to take responsibility for their own affairs, firmly in the context of the United Kingdom. This Parliament will always be sovereign, but I believe that, in giving away some of its power again to the Assembly, this elected Chamber recognises the progress that has been made and that, after many difficult, dark years in Northern Ireland, people are stepping forward who are prepared to take tough decisions and give leadership-no one more so than my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East, who, as First Minister, has shown that leadership. We do these things in the hope of a better future.

Patrick Cormack: The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) made a powerful, statesmanlike speech and I very much agree with what he said.
	In what will probably be my last speech on Northern Ireland in the House, I am delighted that the First Minister and his predecessor are here. The House, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom owe a great deal to their leadership. Without the remarkable work of the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), we would not be here today. Without the courageous persistence, at a time of great personal difficulty, of the current First Minister, we would not be debating the orders this afternoon. We owe them both a great deal for what they have done and the leadership they have given, just as we owe much to many others in all political parties in Northern Ireland.
	I share the disappointment that the Ulster Unionists did not feel able at the very least to abstain on 9 March. It was a great pity that they ignored the advice of my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State and that of the Leader of the Opposition, and that they persisted in voting against. That was a short-sighted and mistaken decision, and I hope that, even now, they are realising that the only future for Northern Ireland is for them to accept, as true democrats, the will of the overwhelming majority in the Assembly and give every possible support to implementing practical devolution of justice and policing after 12 April. I know that their one representative here, the hon. and courageous Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), will hold to that view, and I hope that they will come to follow her example.
	It is also a pleasure to be here with the Secretary of State and his admirable, estimable colleague, the Minister of State. I pay tribute to their actions in building on their predecessors' work and ensuring that we have the debate this afternoon. Many people have contributed a great deal, including successive Prime Ministers. We must not forget the work of Tony Blair-I think that events in Northern Ireland will be reckoned his greatest achievement as Prime Minister-that of the current Prime Minister, and also that of John Major. The accord that John Major formed with Albert Reynolds, and the way in which the chemistry between them worked, was fundamental to what has been built afterwards. I am confident that, in a spirit of true party accord, we will pass, without Division, the orders that we are considering.
	When the Select Committee was in Northern Ireland in January, we took evidence from the Chief Constable, the Probation Board for Northern Ireland, the Policing Board, the director of prisons and many others on devolution. At that point, things hung in the balance. Indeed, our meetings coincided with the first two days of the Hillsborough talks, and we did not quite know what was going to happen. We all hoped that the talks would result in success, but we did not know. On that first evening, when I talked to the Secretary of State, the Minister and the Prime Minister, there were real obstacles to overcome, but they were overcome.
	In taking evidence from the people whom I cited, we found that the people on the ground were ready for change. Every one of them said, "Yes, we are ready." Some went further and said, "We were ready two years ago and we are sorry it has taken so long," but they were ready and they relished the challenge. I believe that Northern Ireland is exceptionally well served by some truly remarkable people who head its various public services. It is sometimes easy to forget that Northern Ireland has a small population. I do not think that any other part of the UK with such a small population-Northern Ireland's is about the same as that of Greater Birmingham-has such talent to draw upon for its judiciary, Prison Service, probation service and Chief Constables.
	A succession of Chief Constables have been true leaders, none more so than the late husband of the hon. Member for North Down. I believe that the present Chief Constable, with his great experience of community policing, which is terribly important, will make his mark-as did Sir Hugh Orde-as a fine Chief Constable. It is very important indeed-the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made this plain in his remarks-that the Chief Constable has true and complete operational independence. There must never be any doubt about that, and I do not think that there will be, because it seems to me that the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and everyone else accept how important that is.
	The hon. Gentleman spoke about 2012. I can understand why he feels apprehensive that everything might go into the melting pot again in 2012, which will be just a year or so after the probable date of the next Assembly elections. It behoves all of us-in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK-to try to ensure that there is no real problem or crisis at that point. Of course, if the devolution of policing and justice works as well as I believe it can, and as well as I hope and think it will, confidence will be built up over the next two years, and there should be no great hiatus, as we all hope. The hon. Gentleman made a valid point when he talked about not expecting perfection as a precondition of anything. What has struck me over the last two or three years in particular has been the way in which there has been a truly sensible and pragmatic approach from those who have led the political parties in Northern Ireland. They have recognised, as all human beings should, that perfection is a fairly elusive quality.
	I often think of the first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whom I knew well, who was the Leader of the House when I was first elected in 1970-the late, great Willie Whitelaw. He is remembered for many things, including his saying that he was not going to go around stirring up apathy. He also made that immortal remark, which I frequently quote, that things are never as good or as bad as they seem. We all need to recognise that and what was implicit in the closing remarks of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, who reminded us of the dark and terrible days of the troubles. He reminded us of the bereavements in his family-other Northern Ireland Members could echo those stories from their family histories-but he also said that we must now go on. One of the most difficult things, after such a time of trouble, when so many have lost their lives, is that drawing of a line. Some who came before the Committee during its investigations were able to say, "Yes, I could see my wife's name on the same memorial as the man responsible for her death". That was an extraordinary and deeply moving remark to make. However, others said, "No, I can never rest until I have complete satisfaction and justice."
	"Justice" can be a very hard word. I often remember a story told to me by a friend of mine who was a great artist, John Ward, whom some Members of the House might remember-he died at the age of 90 two or three years ago. A captain of industry commissioned John to do a portrait of his wife. They discussed where the portrait would be painted and how she would pose. As John left, the captain of industry turned to him and said, "And you must do her justice." John turned round and said, "It's not justice she needs; it's mercy." We must remember the moral of that story in respect of Northern Ireland. To forget is impossible, and to forgive-however strong one's Christian beliefs-is terribly difficult. However, if one does have Christian beliefs, as most Northern Ireland political leaders do, one believes in the power of forgiveness and redemption, which is so necessary if we are to move forward to the normality that every Northern Ireland Member of this House wants, and which one is conscious that people want whenever one goes to Northern Ireland.
	I shall end with some remarks about this place, if I may. When one looks at the progress that has been made over the last two years in particular and at that remarkable achievement of 2007, when the right hon. Member for North Antrim gave that extraordinary and exemplary leadership, one realises that the influence of this House has quite clearly and properly been marginalised-that is a necessary and proper consequence of devolution. The role of the Committee that I have had the honour to chair for almost the last five years has also clearly been marginalised to a degree, as its remit has shrunk. If, as I devoutly hope and pray, we move to this final stage of devolution on 12 April, some may ask, "Is there a point and purpose in having a Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs?" My answer to that would be yes, because if ever a constituent Assembly within the United Kingdom needed firm, foul-weather friends, it is going to be in the years ahead. We need within this Parliament those who passionately care about Northern Ireland even if they do not come from Northern Ireland. I know how my Committee's work has been welcomed in Northern Ireland, as it was last week, when we published a significant report. I know that people in that most beautiful, fascinating and historical part of our country look to this House, whatever their ultimate views might be about the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. Whether they look at it from a Unionist or a nationalist point of view, they recognise the responsibility vested here. I hope that although the Committee's remit will be significantly reduced, Members will be willing to serve on it in the next Parliament to provide those firm, foul-weather friends whom I mentioned.
	It has been a great honour to be involved with the history of Northern Ireland during one of the most exciting and challenging times in its recent history. I hope that we have been able to make a minor contribution to the progress that has been made. It is highly appropriate that the last significant debate on Northern Ireland in this Parliament should be on these orders. I hope and believe that we will pass them without Division, but with inward acclamation, wishing them total success.

Ian Paisley: This will be my last contribution to debates in this Chamber. My friend the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) has just spoken about making his last speech on Northern Ireland, but I wish to remind myself that the reason that these Benches are not packed to capacity today is that things are moving in the right direction. If they were going in the wrong direction, many of these vacant places would be filled.
	I made my maiden speech in this House sitting as near the door as I could, because I thought that I might be kicked out. I made some terrible mistakes, according to many people. For example, I spoke for too long and I was called to account by the Speaker for making attacks on certain elements in the IRA. But I learned as I went on so that I could come here and carry the flag that I believed I had to carry. I was grateful that people started to think that we must have an end to this matter and that we could not go on with part of the United Kingdom torn by such violence.
	South Down has been mentioned, and I spent all my holidays as a boy in that area. But then the IRA burned down my father's house and I no longer had the privilege of spending my holidays there. I have been back many times since, however, and at the first meeting I attended there I mentioned that incident. I said to the people, "I'm sorry you burned down my home, otherwise you'd have seen more of me." A little old lady at the back shouted out, "It's a terrible shame." I thanked her and agreed with her.
	The day has come when Northern Ireland must boldly face the simple facts. There are people in Northern Ireland who have diverse religious and political convictions, but they can live together as neighbours. When I was a boy, there was more neighbourliness than we have seen for many years. Something entered the hearts of the people that destroyed the reverence for neighbourliness and kindliness. The Ulster people are not a hard people: they are a loving and caring people. I am glad that there is no disturbance in the House today. We are meeting here in calm and peace, because that calm and peace is slowly but surely being established in Northern Ireland. We are making progress in the right direction.
	Of course, there will be times when both sides of the political spectrum might feel that they are being pushed, but they need to keep their hands in their pockets and remember that it is our hearts that should drive us in trying to win the best outcome for our people. I am confident that, with the good friendship in this House towards Northern Ireland, we will come to a day-although I may not live to see it-when these troubles will be forgotten. We will not forget, of course, the price that was paid or the loyalty of those who stood against assassins, but we will forget the awfulness of the days that we have come through. As we move forward, we shall see prosperity in our land. A working people live at peace. When there is no work, Satan finds plenty for idle hands to do. I want to see more and more employment coming to Northern Ireland. I want to see the young people having every chance educationally to prepare themselves for the future. I want to see a real dedication from all our people, no matter what their politics or religion, as hard-working people and parents to make their family life a thing of blessing and sunshine, not a thing of tears and regret. I hope that that is what will happen.
	On the matters of policing and marching, we need level heads. We need a calm appreciation of the facts and we need to do our best to ensure that our contribution will be one that will assist the people of Northern Ireland in making progress. I would like to see in Northern Ireland the same situation as in other parts of the United Kingdom, so that when there is a march those who are legally entitled to walk-and who do not want to cause trouble but only to declare their principles-will be able to walk in peace. I refer to both sides when I say that.
	I mentioned the holidays I spent in South Down. I played with the boys in Killowen, who were strong republicans and strong Roman Catholics, and I was just as strong a Unionist and a Protestant. However, they came with me to the 12 July demonstration, and I went with them to the Warrenpoint Hibernian demonstration. In fact, the Hibernian people got into trouble just before their demonstration. On the night before, one of their drums gave way. They had no drum, so they came down to the Orange hall and got an Orange drum on loan. They also got a sheet, which they covered up and on which they roughly painted their Hibernian slogan. However, as they were going through Warrenpoint the next day, the sheet came off, and all that could be seen was "To the immortal memory of King William III" and "No surrender!" Everybody laughed; nobody got up and said, "This can't be." There was a general mood of good will.
	That good will is going to be hard to build, because there are people with very deep wounds-I think of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) sitting here, whose family I have known for years. I know what they suffered, and many others have suffered, and it is the same on the other side, but this I can say to the House. Northern Ireland is moving in the right direction, and this House needs to see that it encourages it to go forward at this time. We welcome the help of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland, chaired by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire. We also welcome the good work of the various Secretaries of State. Some of them we disagreed with and some of them we would have liked to punch at times, but we neither punched them nor disagreed with them in a muscular fashion, and today we are here in the quiet of this House.
	I do not think that there will be a Division in the House tonight; I think that we will all feel that we are moving the right way. That does not mean that we have reached the end of the journey-far from it-but we are moving the right way. For those from this House who continue to take up their duties in Northern Ireland, I trust that these will become happier and happier as the days go by. Thank you very much.

William Cash: It is a great privilege to follow the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) on what is an historic occasion. The tributes that have been paid, with the appropriate degree of caution about the future, bring to mind the history not only of the troubles, but of the role that the UK Parliament has played in such matters, going back to the earliest times of our Parliament.
	The degree of co-operation and good will that we have heard today is truly important, whichever side of the political or religious divide one has come from. However, those looking back through the annals of our history will want to consider the role played by this House and the battles conducted here. They include those involving Daniel O'Connell and John Bright, as well as the episodes during the 1880s involving Parnell, followed by the obstructionism and the violence that took place in this very Chamber. That led not merely to the suspension of Standing Orders, but to their being taken away from the Speaker and handed over to the Executive, an issue that we are yet to resolve. In addition, we then had the later period, with Carson, the Black and Tans, and the problems from 1918 through to the 1920s, and then again in more recent times, with the tremendous tensions that were built up.
	I follow the right hon. Member for North Antrim in his awareness of what has changed in this House, given the relative calm of this Chamber-in fact, the complete calm-compared with the ructions that were once stimulated by the great passions that reigned over the questions of Northern Ireland and home rule. They included the break-up leading to the creation of Liberal Unionism by Joe Chamberlain and John Bright on the question of home rule, which sometimes gets forgotten. I mentioned home rule in an intervention on the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), but these are momentous historic questions and huge constitutional issues. As the right hon. Member for North Antrim has said, we are here in this Chamber discussing the devolution of policing and justice, with the reservations that have been made and the acknowledgement that there is a sunset clause, although I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) modestly underestimated the role played by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland and the degree to which those policies were developed under the aegis of the UK Parliament.
	All I say by way of conclusion is that the Chamber may be relatively empty, but despite the ghosts of those who have taken part in these momentous occasions, with all the passions and the tumult in this House on the issues of Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole, we have now moved so far that the right hon. Member for North Antrim was able to touch on his origins in this House and the passions that he induced, which he explained so clearly in his speech today. The transformation of the politics of Northern Ireland is not yet complete, but the bottom line is this: great progress has been made, and the one thing that one can say is that the beneficiaries are the people of Northern Ireland and our democratic system.

Peter Robinson: Let me first pay tribute to my two colleagues who are leaving the House at the end of this Parliament. The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), has always been a friend of Northern Ireland. He has always assisted Northern Ireland, not only as Chairman of the Committee, but as a Member of Parliament. We were concerned about him at one stage-he took a bit of time before he managed to reach the House after the last election-but he got here none the less, and he managed to change the legislation to ensure that nobody else would fall into the same difficulties. He has been a good friend, and we very much thank him for his role.
	My long-time friend and colleague, the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has had a colourful career. We have described him as a colossus in Unionist politics. His name will be remembered in the history of Northern Ireland as one of the most influential figures in Unionism. His leadership in the most difficult times that we have gone through has been a major factor in bringing Northern Ireland through to the peaceful and stable society that we are now enjoying. On behalf not only of my party, but of the Unionist community as a whole, I rejoice in the fact that Ian Paisley was there, that he was able to say no when the question demanded that answer, and that he was there to say yes when the opportunity was there to make progress.
	I apologise for my late arrival in the House, although I think that I have broken my record of speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3 o'clock and managing to speak here just after 6 o'clock. I flew over with one of our friends from the other place, Lord Kilclooney. He likes to ensure that my feet are firmly on the ground, and he handed me a copy of the  Lurgan Mail, so that I could see what was happening at the grass roots, as I think he put it. I enjoyed reading about various events around Lurgan, but I was a bit shocked to see a statement from the Ulster Unionist Assembly Member Sam Gardiner, who gave his reasons for opposing the devolution of policing and justice. They can be paraphrased in one sentence: Sinn Fein wants it, so Unionists should be against it.
	Such zero-sum politics-sectarian politics-drag Northern Ireland down and back. We must recognise that it is possible to find a way forward in Northern Ireland that is a win-win solution, and that it is possible to have agreements on how we move forward in Northern Ireland that attracts the support of both Nationalist and Unionists. The devolution of policing and justice is such an issue. For 100 years, Unionists' policy has been to have devolved powers over policing and justice.
	I am not sure about the thinking of Sam Gardiner, who says that we should dispose of the epitome of the Unionist requirement for devolution simply because someone else happens to want it. Carson and Craig would not have accepted devolution in Northern Ireland without powers over policing and justice. Brian Faulkner, a later Unionist leader, was prepared to do away with devolution because power over policing and justice was removed-recognition that properly joined-up Government needs the ability to enforce powers exercised in other areas.
	The devolution of policing and justice is not only Unionist policy; it is Democratic Unionist party policy. In our last manifesto in 2007, we expressly told the people of Northern Ireland that we support the devolution of policing and justice. We gave them a commitment to work towards that devolution. However, we had two caveats. First, we required community support for whatever structures were proposed. Secondly, we made it clear that we did not believe that there would be support for the devolution of policing and justice, if there were a Sinn Fein Minister.
	I believe that we have met those two conditions. I am not relying simply on opinion polls, although when they are going in the right direction, we all like looking at them. The two most recent opinion polls on this subject show that people overwhelmingly want the devolution of policing and justice. We went around the country, and I addressed public and party meetings throughout Northern Ireland. Not once, at any of those meetings, did anyone say, "Stop. Don't go ahead with this. It is a bad idea." We placed adverts in newspapers, and people had the opportunity to respond. I received one e-mail opposing the devolution of policing and justice, and when I responded to it, I quickly discovered that it came from a supporter of another Unionist political party, who would not agree to anything in any circumstances under our dissident Unionists.
	There is support in the community for the devolution of policing and justice. More than that, there is support for that devolution from all the Assembly parties, and all, save one, voted in favour of it during the debate. One party, the Ulster Unionist party, did not. However, it made it clear that in principle it supports the devolution of policing and justice. In addition, in 2003, it reached agreement at Hillsborough with Sinn Fein and others to have policing and justice powers devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly by the mid-point of the following Assembly, which would have been September or October 2005. It reached that agreement when the IRA was still killing people on the streets, and continuing its gangsterism, and when the IRA and Sinn Fein were still attacking the police, would not recognise the courts and did not accept the rule of law. In all those circumstances, the Ulster Unionist party said in 2003 that there should be devolution of policing and justice. Indeed, one of its Assembly Members, who is happy to go in front of the cameras nowadays, Mr. David McNarry, said that that had to happen, and that there had to be a Sinn Fein Minister. In much worse circumstances and with a much worse deal, the Ulster Unionists were prepared to have devolution of policing and justice, but they have now decided that it would not be opportune now.
	I believe that the views expressed by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) accurately reflect the views of the Ulster Unionist party, and certainly the views of its support base. Opinion polling by my office and by the Secretary of State shows that more than three quarters of its supporters wanted the devolution of policing and justice. I do not believe that during the subsequent period there has been a significant or appreciable level of concern about the devolution of those powers. Not only are they devolved in circumstances that command community support, but we have-I suppose that this is one of the factors that created that support-a significant financial package to assist us in moving forward. Without that package, we might have to dispose of the services of up to 1,200 police officers. It is a first-class financial deal that supports the overall devolution of policing and justice.
	One of the differences since the days of Carson and Craig is that we have a different system of Government, which required more detailed negotiations that continued for a considerable period. We had to devise systems to ensure that we could safely and securely ensure the independence of the Chief Constable in the operation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and the independence of the judiciary, which is just as important.
	I heard the intervention from the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). We must be clear that the Chief Constable's role as the Minister's chief adviser relates to the Minister's policy role, and that the Minister has no operational role in the functioning of the PSNI. The Chief Constable has complete independence without political interference in how the PSNI operates. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will defend the Chief Constable's independence as strongly as other hon. Members on these Benches.
	The important factor in the devolution of policing and justice is that it completes the whole devolution package for Northern Ireland. People can now see the jigsaw completed, and the overall context of devolution. That brings me to the reason given by the Ulster Unionist party for not devolving policing and justice. The argument was that to some extent the Executive were not functioning properly, so there was no confidence in devolving powers to it. The reality is that parties that see themselves as opposition parties-we have the strange factor in Northern Ireland that Government parties see themselves as Ministers in opposition, because the smaller parties in the Executive take that role-may say that the Executive are dysfunctional and could do better. I firmly believe that they could do better and reach more decisions, but they have reached significantly more decisions than the previous Executive led by the Ulster Unionist party. By the end of the Assembly's final year, we will have taken twice as many decisions, and reached twice as many agreements as its predecessor. Indeed, it has to be said that the Assembly has taken much more difficult decisions than its predecessors did.
	It is also worth noting that one of the difficulties preventing the Executive from moving forward was the fact that the devolution process had not been completed. It has been interesting that, in the past two Executive meetings, there have been more decisions flushing through the system than at any time previously, now that the logjam has been taken out of the way. Yes, of course we can do better, but we are doing better than our predecessors, and we are doing better month by month.
	People in Northern Ireland do not want to go back to the bad old days of the past. They want to move forward and to see progress being made. They are content that we have a devolution system that has securities, vetoes and controls built into it, to ensure that no section of our community can be discriminated against. I therefore believe that we have taken a major step in moving Northern Ireland forward, to ensure that we continue to make progress and build on the peace and stability that we have, and, as we move out of recession, build prosperity for our people.

Lady Hermon: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson), the First Minister, for giving way. I want to put it on record that this Ulster Unionist representative in this House-for whatever time is left to me to speak for the party here-commends the Democratic Unionist party for what was a very courageous decision. Its decision on the devolution of policing and justice was absolutely right, and it cannot have been easy. I commend the party warmly on reaching the right decision. The people of Northern Ireland want to go forward, and that includes the Unionist people. All the Unionist people of Northern Ireland want to go forward with those of different political persuasions. Our common enemy-the dissident republicans, Orange volunteers and the like-would wreak havoc if they could, but they will not, because we will stand together in opposition to all paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland.

Peter Robinson: I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for those comments. I believe that she has accurately reflected the position of the Unionist community. I know that she very much regrets that the Ulster Unionist party, through its leadership, has placed itself along with the dissident republicans and Unionists.
	I also recognise that the hon. Member for Foyle and other members of his party are not completely content with every aspect of the arrangements for policing and justice; they have said so. If either Sinn Fein or the DUP had been left to write the agreement themselves, it would have been a very different document. That is the nature of doing deals and reaching agreements. They are compromises by their very nature, and we need to seek consensus in order to move forward. The hon. Member for Foyle could very well have said, "We didn't have our thumbprint on this document, so we are going to vote against it or abstain." He did not do so, however. Although it was not as they would have wished, he and his party supported it in principle and voted in favour of it. I believe that that is the position that the Ulster Unionist party should have adopted, and I very much regret that it did not do so. I am glad that the Conservative Opposition in this House made their position clear, but I regret that they were not in a better position to persuade their colleagues in Northern Ireland to follow the route that they were taking.
	I strongly believe that the people of Northern Ireland support the devolution of these powers, and that they want us to get on with the work of dealing with jobs, education and health. Those are the matters that come to me when I meet people on the streets. Seldom has anyone come up to me and said, "We need to get policing and justice sorted out," or "We need to get parading sorted out." People want the Assembly and the Executive to get on with the day-to-day, bread and butter issues, and that must be our priority over the weeks, months and years ahead.
	I should like to say a final word on the issue of the sunset clause. I started off by regarding the sunset clause as a necessary evil. Both parties recognised it as a temporary expedient, but we were unable to reach a permanent agreement on it. I have moved my position, however; I now think that the clause will assist us all. Over the next year or two, it will allow us to use our experience of having the devolved functions to determine whether any changes would be beneficial or necessary. We should not, however, wait until the period of time has passed before we sit down and try to resolve any such matters. As soon as the new Assembly is elected in 2011, it must straight away get down to working out its processes for continuing the role of policing and justice. We should not be nervous about the fact that our experience over those years will enable us to determine whether the same system should be continued, whether it should be tweaked, or whether more significant changes should be made. I am not afraid of looking at that issue in 2011-12, and I believe that the sunset clause will benefit the Assembly.
	I think that, before I arrived in the Chamber, the hon. Member for Foyle spoke of not making the perfect the enemy of the good. That is exactly where we stand today. Regrettably, some people believe that we should wait until we have all our ducks in a row and everything is perfect before we move forward. We should never make progress in Northern Ireland if we did that, however, because nothing is ever perfect in politics.

Mark Durkan: The problem with the sunset clause is not simply that it requires political agreement, or that it imposes an obligation on the parties to sort out their positions. The nature of the clause is that, in the absence of an agreement, the Department will be dissolved. It is the implications of that happening that we need to consider, because that is what the House has legislated for. If we have such confidence in the future, why do we need a sunset clause that would require the Department to be dissolved? Do the parties really need that in order to concentrate their minds in the positive way that the right hon. Gentleman has been suggesting?

Peter Robinson: Every journey is taken a step at a time. It is a fact that no agreement could be reached on a final and completed version of these arrangements. We have therefore taken the first step, and we have done so with confidence and faith that we will be able to resolve these issues. I happen to believe that the arrangements that we have will probably be sufficient in 2012, but the determination that has been shown over the past few years to resolve our difficulties will be sufficient to overcome any problem that we might face at that time.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: I was present in April 1998 during the final days that led up to what became known as the Belfast agreement, and I know that the hon. Member for Foyle and others were involved in reaching compromises at the last minute. Those compromises were not the finished product; they were work in progress, and they established arrangements to take forward pieces of work that were not in the final agreement. The hon. Gentleman should therefore be no stranger to the idea that, in a peace process, we do not necessarily reach the final destination at every point. We can, however, establish a firm foothold, in order to go on and build other things in the future.

Peter Robinson: I agree entirely. We have set our direction of travel, and I believe that it is the right one.

Mark Durkan: I should like to refer to what the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) has just said. Yes, of course there were compromises in the Good Friday agreement, as there have been on other occasions. However, none of the compromises that we were party to involved contemplating, or legislating for, the dissolution and collapse of any arrangements. We did not sell confidence on the basis that we had a device for allowing the arrangements to collapse and disappear before our eyes if we did not like what happened around the corner. Will the right hon. Member for Belfast, East tell us whether, in the 2011 Assembly election, his party will claim to have a mandate to hold out for a continued veto on Sinn Fein occupying the role of Minister of Justice? Or will the right hon. Gentleman say, "We are relaxed and agnostic about who should be the Minister of Justice, and we will therefore be able to reach agreement with Sinn Fein"? Because that is what he is telling us.

Peter Robinson: The hon. Gentleman indicates that the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly during the period of the Good Friday agreement was not legislated for, but it did collapse-it collapsed four times, even though that was not legislated for. That is hardly a good example to draw to our attention, as they were capable of collapsing the Assembly without legislation. The one thing that can be said about the present Administration is that even though there have been difficult times, the Assembly has not once collapsed. We have continued to operate, to take our decisions, to move forward and to reach agreements. I do not doubt that there will be challenges for us ahead, but I also do not doubt that we are capable of overcoming them.
	I strongly support the measures before the House. I want to thank the Secretary of State and his team for their assistance during the talks process, and indeed to thank the Prime Minister for the time that he spent in Northern Ireland. I know that there might have been a bit of impatience on their part that it took a little longer than they had expected. I do not apologise for that at all, as I believe that the agreement we now have is stronger, because we took the additional time to get it right. More than that, unlike previous agreements-whether it be the Belfast agreement, the St. Andrews agreement or many others such as the Weston Park agreement and so forth-this one is different. This one was agreed between parties in Northern Ireland. This was made in Ulster, and I believe that it will be all the stronger for that, all the more likely to stick and make it all the more likely that people will go out and stand by it. I believe that it will be a significant step towards peace, stability and prosperity for Northern Ireland.

Laurence Robertson: During the nearly five years in which I have done this Front-Bench job, I have dealt with many statutory instruments. They have usually been dealt with upstairs in Committee; some have been difficult and some have been very easy. This one is, in a sense, the most important, but it is also quite easy in that we have unanimous agreement in the House that these orders should go through. They have been welcomed on all sides and I add my welcome this evening. It has been a rocky road and the last few weeks seemed particularly difficult. In spite of those difficulties, I certainly never lost hope or my faith that we would get to this position. I am very pleased thatwe have.
	Right hon. and hon. Members have made some important and interesting contributions. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) certainly welcomed the orders, but raised an important issue about the sunset clause. It is a matter that we discussed when the original legislation went through last year. I wondered what would happen if we reached 1 May 2012 and an agreement had not been reached. My hope is that having reached agreement on this issue-it has been a very difficult issue and has taken longer than all the other devolution issues to resolve-the Assembly can agree again in order to renew the Department or pass legislation to set up an alternative Department that does essentially the same job. I hope that the Assembly can also start to agree on many of the issues that the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) rightly said people are concerned about each and every day of their lives. People do not wake up necessarily wondering about parading or about devolution, but they do wake up worrying about jobs, their families, transport and all the other issues that people in Great Britain worry about. I hope that the example now set-with two parties, although it should have been four, coming together to agree on a difficult issue-will be replicated in the months and years ahead.
	The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) raised the issue of the Saville inquiry, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). We are not here to discuss that matter tonight, but I repeat my hon. Friend's words: in order to do justice to the long and expensive time taken in compiling the report, we really need the calm of the post-election period, not the pre-election period. I hope that the Secretary of State will take that plea into account.
	The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson), in a customarily passionate and forceful speech, rightly condemned paramilitary activity. It has been unfortunate that we have seen an increase in such activity. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, the bomb squad has been called out and we hear reports of shootings and what can be described only as paramilitary activity virtually every week. It must be regretted on both sides. I hope that devolving police and justice powers today-and doing so unanimously, in this House, at least-sends out a message that we are not going to put up with it and that we are going to tackle these issues through politics and dialogue. Even if there are disagreements, the important consideration is how we disagree. I hope that today will send out a message to those trying to wreck the process. As has been said, they do not have support in the communities; they have no support either in Northern Ireland or in the south. I hope that message gets through loud and clear.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) paid many tributes to various people, including the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, without whose fortitude we could not have reached this stage-with respect to the orders or devolution in general. The problem with naming people for tribute is that not everybody can be mentioned. I would like to add the names of Margaret Thatcher, David Trimble, John Hume and a number of unnamed and perhaps anonymous officials who have worked very hard behind the scenes to bring about devolution in Northern Ireland. I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire, who has been an influential and assiduous Chairman of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. It has been my pleasure to work with someone who I consider-and I know the whole House considers-to be an outstanding parliamentarian. I wish him well for the future.
	The right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) has, of course, enjoyed an extremely long career. It was wonderful to hear him speaking with such optimism about Northern Ireland moving in the right direction. He rightly said that we cannot forget the struggles and the pain that so many people went through, but it is indeed good that things are moving in the right direction. I also wish him well for the future.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) reminded us in a characteristic speech of the long history of Northern Ireland. History is particularly important when it comes to Northern Ireland. As a Lancastrian who has many friends from Yorkshire, I know that history still plays an important role in relations between people. My hon. Friend reminded us how important history is to the present in Northern Ireland, although we want to move on from some parts of it. I certainly hope that today is part of that moving-on process.
	The right hon. Member for Belfast, East rightly says that people are in favour of devolution, and the Conservative party is in favour of devolution generally as well as in favour of the devolution of policing and justice. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, the financial package is important, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition offered immediate support to it when the matter was raised. It is a post-dated cheque; it is going to have to be written after the general election. Who knows, it may well be a member of my own party who has to write it. The package was readily agreed to. We recognised both the importance of the package and the importance of the issue that it was there to support, the devolution of policing and justice.
	We have heard many speeches, today and in the past, about how successful we have been and what a long way we have travelled in Northern Ireland. I agree, although we must continue to work at peace and reconciliation and making progress; we cannot simply accept that things will always be like this. We must go on trying to normalise politics and life in Northern Ireland, and we must recognise the challenges presented by the ongoing paramilitary activity, by Saville and, perhaps, by 2012. There remains the question of who would be responsible for the support of civil powers if-very undesirably-that became necessary. Overall, however, we have made a huge amount of progress. I wish the Assembly Members well for the days ahead, which, while they may prove challenging, have the potential to be very rewarding.

Paul Goggins: This has been an excellent debate-which is highly appropriate, given that this is the last occasion on which we will debate Northern Ireland policing and criminal justice on the Floor of the House.
	I am delighted that we were joined today by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). She may remember that back in 2003, when I was a Home Office Minister, she and I served together on a Committee that was considering a piece of criminal justice legislation. She kept asking me, "Why cannot this provision be extended to Northern Ireland?", and I kept replying "That is a matter for Northern Ireland Ministers." Of course, when I became a Northern Ireland Minister, that excuse was no longer possible-and no Minister in this Parliament can use it now, because such matters are to be devolved to a local Justice Minister and to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
	The three orders that we have considered represent a milestone in the long journey from conflict to peace, from a divided society to a shared future. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State rightly paid tribute to those who deserve it most-Northern Ireland's own politicians-for the leadership that they have shown, and the increasing political maturity that they demonstrate day by day. Now, even when there is disagreement, they can work through it together.
	No one exemplifies that better than my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who always makes clear his disagreements-when he has them-about such issues as the appointment of the Minister and the interface with national security, but none the less shows his clear and unequivocal support for the progress that we are making. He rightly said that we should not make perfection an obstacle to progress, and I welcome his support for the progress that we are making.
	There are many prizes for devolution. First, there is the not inconsiderable prize mentioned by the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson): the £800 million of extra resources, which, although hard won, is much needed and deserved. We are confident that it will be invested wisely. Secondly, there is the welcome prospect of an Executive working more effectively for the people whom they are there to serve, fully joined up across Government. Thirdly, there is the restoration of confidence in the political institutions of Northern Ireland after years of fracture and undermining by dissident elements.
	Fourthly and crucially, there is the prospect of isolating the dissident element in Northern Ireland-the element that still seeks to attack and murder police officers and still wants to take Northern Ireland backwards, although the vast majority of people there want to move forward. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) reminded us of events that have happened even in recent days, but there is a clear determination in all political parties and all sections of the community, and there is no going back. The completion of devolution is capable of isolating the small number of individuals who persist in such actions.
	The hon. Members for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) and for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) rightly condemned those dissident elements and their activities. I join the hon. Member for North Shropshire in sending good wishes to Peadar Heffron as he recovers from his dreadful injuries inflicted by dissident attackers. His personal strength and the determination of his family stand in marked contrast to the cowardly conduct of those who attacked him.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the role of the Secretary of State in the future, beyond the devolution of policing and justice powers. The Secretary of State will remain the primary point of contact between the devolved Administration and central Government, and will be responsible for fostering good relations between the devolved institutions and central Government. However, he will have no role in determining the arrangements for the Department of Justice or the appointment of a Minister beyond 2012. That is a matter for the local parties and the Assembly to consider.
	The Secretary of State has presented these orders with absolute confidence that the Assembly will be capable of determining the issues for themselves-the right hon. Member for Belfast, East underlined that-and that it will be possible in the coming months to learn lessons that can be deployed in decisions made after 2012. As I have said, these are matters for the Assembly, but we have every confidence that it will resolve them.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle predicted that, once again, he and I would disagree about certain issues. He talked of the interface between issues that will remain the responsibility of central Government and those that will be devolved. I do not deny for a minute that that interface needs to be dealt with extremely carefully, but I believe that it can be managed. Let me return my hon. Friend to the scene from the Clouseau film that he mentioned. The importance of the protocols is that we know precisely whose dog we are talking about, and what responsibility that particular dog has.

Mark Durkan: rose-

Paul Goggins: I am more than happy to give way to my hon. Friend.

Mark Durkan: We published a number of concordats and protocols relating to these measures, including one on the independence of the judiciary and another on the independence of the Public Prosecution Service. Let me remind the Minister of a statement made on 13 December 2006 by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), about the question of the issue of certificates for no-jury trials by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The right hon. Gentleman said:
	"if the DPP judges that there is a risk to the safe administration of justice because of information that he has received, the source of which is a matter for national security in terms of intelligence and so on, he is entitled to go to the judge and say, 'This is a certificate for a juryless trial.' I am not trying to suggest anything else, anything more or anything less than that."-[ Official Report, 13 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 903.]
	Matters that are surely perfectly plain-the independence of the judiciary and the independence of the DPP-are clearly qualified, in that strings can be pulled when there are national security and intelligence considerations.

Paul Goggins: It is rather simpler than that. Three of the four criteria on the basis of which the DPP decides whether to issue a certificate are related to proscribed organisations and therefore to terrorist matters, which are excepted. It is clear that the DPP must consider issuing a certificate in those circumstances. Matters relating to terrorism must remain excepted.
	I am sure that my hon. Friend will recognise the progress that we are making in this regard. He will recall that in the 1980s, more than 200 juryless trials took place each year. In 2007-08, 29 certificates were issued, and in 2008-09 only 13 were issued. We are moving in entirely the right direction, and, as my hon. Friend knows, I have promised a comprehensive review of the powers in the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 before any decision is made about the renewal of those powers to allow trials without juries. I believe that it has been necessary over the course of this year and last year to retain that power, but I hope, as he does, that at some point it will be possible to remove those powers altogether, so that every trial is a trial by jury. When that happens we really will know that we have moved forward into a more peaceful future.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle also talked, as he does, about intelligence policing, and I wish to set the record straight about that. The PSNI remains responsible for all policing in Northern Ireland, and it is accountable to the Policing Board and subject to the scrutiny of the police ombudsman. All the intelligence gathered by the Security Service in Northern Ireland is fully transparent before the PSNI, and rightly so. I see, day in, day out, that that relationship works and saves lives, and it will continue to save lives beyond the date of devolution. I believe that everybody in this House should support that effort. If the Chief Constable requires additional military support-this was another issue that was mentioned-he can, of course, request it through the Secretary of State. However, the Chief Constable has made it absolutely clear that his preference is for mutual aid from other police services. Again, I think that that is a normalisation measure and a step in the right direction.
	The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley mentioned two matters that are not being devolved. The first one he mentioned was the powers under the 50:50 arrangement, and I acknowledge again his strength of feeling, and that of his colleagues, on that issue. We stand on the threshold of the 30 per cent. target being achieved-we hope that that will happen by March next year-and we have just renewed the powers to facilitate that objective. I just put it to him that, despite all the differences that we have, reaching that 30 per cent. target has been fundamental to building confidence in policing among all sections of the community. That confidence in policing has been crucial to the political progress that we have been able to make.

Jeffrey M Donaldson: The Minister and I both served on the Standing Committee that considered the order to renew the legislation, so he knows that I caused a Division and voted against. Will he again confirm to the House that in the event of the 30 per cent. target being reached within the year the Government will come back to the House at that point and rescind the legislation?

Paul Goggins: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the commitment I made in Committee, and I am happy to repeat here that if the 30 per cent. target is reached before March next year Ministers will come back to rescind those special provisions. The target was 30 per cent. and as soon as it is reached we shall be happy to disapply those special arrangements, and we would then proceed in the normal way on recruitment.
	The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned parading, the responsibility for which we anticipate will be devolved at the appropriate time. I acknowledge all the work that has been done and he has played a huge role in taking that work forward in very short order. I hope that in due course the Assembly will make the request for this matter to be transferred, and it is something that we stand ready to do at the appropriate time-I think that he understands that. He also made a very important point about the role of the Assembly committee, which will of course have a wider remit, examining not only policing, but prisons, the Youth Justice Agency, the probation service and criminal justice policy, and many other things. He is right to make the distinction as to who is accountable to whom. The committee in the Assembly will hold the Minister to account, and the Policing Board holds the Chief Constable to account. That is the appropriate set of arrangements, and I know that the hon. Member for North Down also makes that point clearly and strongly.
	The central truth of all this is that devolving policing and criminal justice powers means that we really do have joined-up government in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) made the point that that is the key goal-I believe he said it was the "key prize"-and I can see a number of ways in which this will really move things forward. If the politicians in Northern Ireland are developing a resettlement strategy to reduce reoffending rates, they can do so more effectively when prisons and probation are joined up with health, employment services, housing services and so on. The big prize is that when devolution is completed the whole effort of government can be absolutely focused on young people, particularly those in hard-pressed areas, in order to give them a vision of something different, a way forward and a way out of antisocial behaviour or even worse. These are real prizes of devolution, and I know from listening to the debates of local politicians that they are very eager to grasp and move forward with them.
	The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) demonstrated again his keen and long-standing interest in constitutional issues, and he reminded us of some of the history. We were all rather relieved that the violence and tumult to which he referred were not so evident in the Chamber tonight, despite the comments made by the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) about his feelings towards certain previous Secretaries of State-I shall come to those in a moment.
	May I thank the right hon. Member for Belfast, East on behalf of the whole House for the efforts he made to get here tonight, having had First Minister's questions in the Assembly this afternoon? I congratulate him, the Deputy First Minister and all his colleagues on what is being achieved. The focus in the right hon. Gentleman's speech was on a Northern Ireland beyond sectarianism, and the whole House supports him in that aim, vision and objective. I know that he understands-he made this clear in his speech-that when policing and criminal justice is lined up with the rest of government it is more possible to deliver the vision about which he spoke.
	I turn now to two stalwarts of this House who made tremendous speeches this evening, the first of whom was the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). As is his custom, he paid tribute to a great many people in his speech, but I wish to pay a huge tribute to him for all that he has done. He has remained deeply committed to the Committee that he has chaired so admirably in recent years. I know from my own personal experience that he has wise words of criticism, which are usually gently delivered, but effectively so, as well as huge warm encouragement to offer to Ministers, to other Members and to members of his Committee in order to achieve the big prize of trying to make progress. I thank him personally for the encouragement that he has offered me, and I know that I speak for others here too. He is a truly even-handed Chair of the Select Committee, and I thank him for all that he has done. He will be a great loss to this House, but we all wish him well for the future.
	I turn now to the right hon. Member for North Antrim, about whom much has been said over the many years of what the right hon. Member for Belfast, East described as a "colourful" career. I think that we would all join in that opinion. Irrespective of whatever has been written about him, I have always found him in this place to be unfailingly courteous, kind, thoughtful, generous and deeply spiritual. Those things are the hallmark of the right hon. Member for North Antrim, who is right to say that there is no reason why people of strong views cannot live together if they can find common ground and work on the issues that separate them so that they can move forward together. His leadership has been crucial to the progress that is now being made in Northern Ireland. I remember his speech at St. Andrews-that crucial moment in the step forward to peace and progress in Northern Ireland-when he said that it was necessary to take the step for the sake of the children. Every time he speaks, he speaks about the future and the future for those children, and he does so in a heartfelt way. I wish to thank him for his contribution to this House and to political progress in Northern Ireland, and for what he has done to improve the prospects for people in Northern Ireland. He will, in the end, be remembered as the man who ultimately said yes.
	I detect consensus in this place this evening, and that consensus has been vital in bringing us to this point, where we are on the eve of devolving policing and justice powers. The consensus has been in place here and outside this place. In particular, it was a consensus that many of us felt last week when we visited the United States. Successive Presidents-Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama-have all been involved and all been supportive in this process, as has Secretary of State Clinton, and they have all put real effort, time and support into the efforts of Northern Ireland's politicians. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley reminded us of the hurt and pain that people still experience and the uncertainty that it has brought with it. The encouragement and the partnership in this place and beyond this place have, I think, been important.
	It is very important that that sense of support and solidarity remains in place. Devolution means full empowerment; it does not mean isolation.

Mark Durkan: Will the Minister give way?

Paul Goggins: Devolving policing and justice powers means that Northern Ireland's politicians can really get on now, delivering peace and prosperity and building a better future for the people of Northern Ireland.

Mark Durkan: rose-

Paul Goggins: I am sorry; I did not hear my hon. Friend. I am happy to give way.

Mark Durkan: I thank the Minister for giving way. In the context of his reference to people still suffering pain and hurt, will he acknowledge that there is a family in my constituency who are grieving as a result of a recent murder by the Real IRA? They have serious questions about MI5's involvement in the background to that murder-the interest to which it was subjecting that young man, the surveillance and the attention that it was giving him-and they are left believing that MI5 knows more about his murder than has been disclosed. I know that the family got the opportunity to talk to the Secretary of State, too. This is a very real issue in that context. Does the Minister acknowledge that and how does he see it being addressed? What assurances can he give that family?

Paul Goggins: First, I did not mean any discourtesy to my hon. Friend or to his constituents in not taking his intervention at first-I was not aware that he was seeking to make it. In the end, the devolution of policing and justice is about isolating those who would carry out such a dreadful deed. I bitterly regret the attack that was carried out on his constituent and I understand the distress and hurt that have been caused by that. If he wishes to pursue the issue with me beyond the debate I will be more than happy so to do-he knows that-and if there are things that I can do to support him and his constituents, I will be happy to do them. I can reassure him that the police are investigating that vile murder. If there are views that the family want to bring to my attention, I ask him please to encourage them to do so. I would be happy to meet him and to discuss that further.
	I had concluded my speech, but let me say again that I wish all the politicians of Northern Ireland well in building that peaceful, prosperous future for which so many have worked so very hard.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That the draft Northern Ireland Court Service (Abolition and Transfer of Functions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved.

nORTHERN iRELAND

Resolved,
	That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Devolution of Policing and Justice Functions) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Resolved,
	That the draft Northern Ireland Act 1998 (Amendment of Schedule 3) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 March, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)

Adjournment (Easter)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.  25),
	That this House, at its rising on Tuesday 30 March 2010, do adjourn till Tuesday 6 April 2010. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.

CHILD POVERTY BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 2)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order  No.  83A(7)) ,
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Child Poverty Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 20 July 2009 in the last Session of Parliament (Child Poverty Bill (Programme)):
	 Consideration of Lords Amendments
	1. Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement at this day's sitting.
	 Subsequent stages
	2. Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
	3. The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.

Child Poverty Bill

Consideration of Lords amendments

Stephen Timms: I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this is will be convenient to take Lords amendments 2 to 12, 14, 15 and 19 to 21.

Stephen Timms: Let me take the opportunity to thank hon. Members in this House and noble Lords in another place for their contribution to the passage of this groundbreaking Bill. It aims to drive the lasting eradication of child poverty and establishes a framework for accountability by requiring annual reports to be made to Parliament on action taken on the Government's child poverty strategy.
	Members of this House and peers in another place agreed that progress against the 2010 target to halve child poverty should be reported clearly and as part of the Bill. The Government accepted that proposal and Lords amendment 1 therefore requires the Government to make a report to Parliament on the 2010 target. The report must be made as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of the 2010 target year and in any event not later than 30 June 2012.
	Lords amendments 2, 3 and 4 add to or clarify the policy areas that must be considered by the Secretary of State when preparing a child poverty strategy. There was wide agreement that the strategy should include a measure on support for parents, to increase their capacity to support their children's development. That is reflected in Lords amendment 2. Lords amendment 3 recognises the importance of addressing mental health in tackling child poverty. Lords amendment 4 ensures that the Secretary of State, in preparing a UK strategy, will not only focus on those children who are easy to lift above the poverty line, but consider those children whose disadvantage is greatest.
	Hon. Members in this House and peers in another place agreed that there should be a direct requirement to consult children when preparing child poverty strategies. Lords amendments 5, 6 and 7 ensure that there is an explicit requirement for the Secretary of State, the devolved Administrations and local authorities to consult children and organisations working with them, as they see fit, when drawing up strategies.
	Members of the other place also argued, rightly in my view, that consultation should be extended to parents, whose views should inform the development of the child poverty strategies, so Lords amendments 8, 11 and 12 place a duty on the Secretary of State, the devolved Administrations and local authorities to consult parents directly and to consult the organisations working with or representing them, as they see fit, when preparing their strategies.

William Cash: In the context of the proposals to introduce these measures relating to child poverty, does the Minister accept that a child can be in poverty not only by reference to the criteria set out in clause 24, but because the degraded circumstances and moral environment of the family in question induce it? The problem is not just socio-economic; it relates to how a child is brought up, how it is treated, as we have found so often in the tragic cases that have led to death in many instances.

Stephen Timms: The hon. Gentleman is right, of course, that all kinds of disadvantage can affect children. As the Bill makes clear, the child poverty strategy that the Government will draw up needs a broad base. The partnerships of local organisations that address it also need to be broad. In the end, poverty is about income and that is why the targets in this Bill are set and drawn in the way they are. There is a shared determination across the House, which has been reflected in the debates on this measure, to reduce the incidence of child poverty and of low income, which causes it.

John Howell: I am very interested in what the Minister has just said. Does he not accept that Lords amendments 1 to 4, in particular, take us back to what we argued for in Committee-that is, to an emphasis on the causes of poverty and not just on the financial amounts that are given?

Stephen Timms: We are all concerned about the causes of poverty. It is certainly true that in some respects-particularly, for example, as regards the amendment on the 2010 target-the Government have accepted what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends were arguing for, and a report will be produced specifically on that target. However, I certainly would not agree with him that it was simply Conservative Members who were concerned about the causes of poverty. That concern was widely shared.
	There were concerns in the other place that the Bill did not give enough recognition to the needs of "family and friends carers" who might look after a child full time but who do not have parental responsibilities. Lords amendment 14 extends the definition of "parent" to cover those who do not have parental responsibility but who are caring for children who live with them. The new definition, in conjunction with the provisions in clause 9, means that the Secretary of State must, when preparing a UK strategy, consider measures aimed at all persons who have parental responsibility for a child or who have a child living with them, including "family and friends carers".
	Lords amendments 9 and 10 remove the definitions of "parent" and "parental responsibility" from clause 17. Lords amendments 14 and 15 move the revised definition of "parent" and the existing definition of "parental responsibility" into part 3, thus ensuring that the widened definition of "parent" applies to the whole Bill and not just to part 1. The requirement for local authorities to consult parents, in Lords amendment 12, will apply the new, wider definition of "parent".
	Finally, Members of another place argued that the independence and effectiveness of the child poverty commission would be strengthened by permitting it, rather than the Secretary of State, to choose a deputy chair from among its members. We were persuaded that Lords amendment 19 would give the commission greater scope to regulate its affairs in the most efficient and effective way.
	I hope that I have explained the amendments sufficiently, and I am grateful to those across the House and the other place who have supported the aims of the Bill and worked hard to achieve what is before us. I hope also that the House will be happy to agree to the amendments.

Andrew Selous: It is a pleasure to be back debating this important Bill, which has, as the Minister rightly says, enjoyed cross-party support. We have had useful debates on it, and I believe that the amendments agreed in the other place make what was a good Bill even better. The Conservatives are certainly pleased to welcome the amendments, and I was pleased by the spirit in which the Minister addressed his remarks.
	Let me go through the amendments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) has pointed out, we are particularly pleased that the 2010 target has been inserted in the new first clause of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) proposed the same clause in Committee on 3 November 2009, but it did not find favour at that time, as the two Ministers currently on the Treasury Bench-the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman)-were not happy to support it at that stage. That change matters because, sadly, early progress on reversing child poverty has not been maintained since 2004-05. The report that will be produced on the 2010 target will provide an important opportunity to take stock and see what new approaches could be tried to ensure that progress does not continue to slip back and that further progress can be made on reducing the number of children in poverty.
	I am particularly pleased that amendment 2 on promoting parenting skills has been made. Again, I tabled a similar amendment in Committee-amendment 2 to clause 8 -which was aimed at strengthening family relationships in order to reduce family breakdown, as well as having other aims. I hope that due attention will be paid to the provision of parenting skills. The research of academics such as Cowan and Cowan at the university of Berkeley in California, who gave a very informative presentation in the House not long ago, has shown quite conclusively that parenting work is even more effective if it is combined with work to strengthen the relationship between parents, where that relationship still exists. That is a welcome change.

William Cash: Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to take part in the Committee. May I follow up my earlier intervention by asking my hon. Friend whether some reference to the circumstances in which children find themselves when there is moral deprivation in a household could have been included? Does he regard parenting skills as including trying to teach children the difference between right and wrong? In other words, the fact that they do not have money does not necessarily mean that they do not have happiness.

Andrew Selous: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He touches on an important point regarding the causes of poverty, which are very complex. A central point that my hon. Friends and I have raised throughout the Bill's progress through both Houses has been about paying due attention to the full range of those causes and particularly to making sure that the cycle of intergenerational poverty does not repeat itself. The elements that my hon. Friend has raised are important, and I am grateful to him for putting them on the record.

Bob Spink: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his efforts to improve the Bill, which was always a good Bill. Is he satisfied that there is sufficient focus in the amended Bill on giving more power to the wider family in dealing with related issues? When I talk about the wider family, I include grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Andrew Selous: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that useful point. I shall speak shortly about the measures in the Bill on kinship care-the friends and family provisions-which go some way towards addressing the issues he raises. His point is also well made because we need to consider the wider context within which children grow up. Family-both nuclear and extended-is very important within that.
	Returning to amendment 2, the inclusion of the amendment and the words "parenting skills" in the Bill goes some way towards providing recognition for what I call the vanished eighth building block from the "Ending child poverty: making it happen" document that the Government's child poverty unit produced last year. The building block of family was clearly in the document but seemed to escape clause 8. The inclusion of parenting skills in the Bill is important. That is not all that we need to do in this area, but its inclusion is very welcome, none the less.
	I am also delighted that mental health has been included, through amendment 3. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) for having played an important and useful role in Committee. He valiantly attempted to get recognition for mental health in the Bill on 3 November 2009 with his amendment 62, which hon. Members can read in column 292 of the Committee's proceedings. The amendment was defeated by only one vote, so it nearly succeeded, and we had cross-party support on it. I am pleased that mental health is now included, as it is an important issue, which, for many families, must be addressed before they can move themselves out of poverty.
	Lords amendment 4, on recognising the vulnerability of specific groups, is particularly important and welcome. We discussed that issue in Committee on 29 October when we debated amendment 2, which can be seen at column 213 of the Committee's proceedings. I spoke about the issues that affect families with disabilities, who have particular needs, and I mentioned the needs of certain ethnic minority communities, such as the Bangladeshi community in London, in which there are particular problems. The recognition of vulnerable groups is useful. We need to recognise that we cannot have a one-size-fits-all strategy, and that certain groups will need particular focus, attention and outreach work. There are non-governmental organisations and others with particular expertise in this area.
	I was at a seminar on child poverty this morning at which I heard about some work done by Save the Children, again with Bangladeshi women in London. The work had been especially useful and real progress had been made, and I commend it to the child poverty unit. It is worth the unit looking into that work further when it considers vulnerable groups, which, as I have said, are an important and useful addition the Bill.

John Howell: Like my hon. Friend, I welcome Lords amendment 4 and its focus on those most at risk. However, does he share my concern that we do not have any criteria for understanding how to decide who are most at risk? Does he agree that that decision can be made only by looking at the causes of poverty, rather than simply using fractions of income between different groups? The change is welcome, but we need to understand how Ministers will make the decision.

Andrew Selous: As always, my hon. Friend makes a good and important point. He will know that I have continually raised the issue of how we deal with the causes of poverty, and with the strict income requirements that the Minister quite rightly raised. My hon. Friend is right that progress has been made, and that there has been some recognition at least that vulnerable groups should be included in the Bill, but he is also right to say that the Bill does not specify which groups are vulnerable. Further work will need to be done in that regard, and it will be up to the Secretaryof State and the child poverty commission to start answering the questions that my hon. Friend has quite properly raised.
	Lords amendment 5 deals with how we can ensure that parents of children living in poverty, and the children themselves, are consulted as part of the work of the Secretary of State and the CPC. That is a very important amendment, and I was pleased to vote for what was amendment 56 when it was brought before the Committee. I am sorry that it was defeated at that time, but I am very pleased that the Bill has come back to us with this requirement to consult parents and children living in poverty.
	What that makes clear is that consultation by expert proxy is not acceptable, in any walk of life. We should welcome consulting directly the people for whom we are trying to provide services and at whom legislation is directed. There is a lot of evidence to show that consulting people who are to be helped by legislation early enough-especially at a commissioning level-brings many advantages. For example, I learned last week that better social care for disabled children can be achieved at a lower cost if the consultation is done properly and carried out early enough, particularly at the commissioning level. There are advantages all round when that approach is taken, so the amendment is a very welcome addition.
	The amendments on care provided by family and friends, or kinship care, are tremendously important, and I am very pleased indeed to see them added to the Bill as it comes back from the other place. We debated those issues in Committee, and to their credit Ministers committed to go away and look at this area. I am very pleased that the Government have agreed to the amendments.
	These amendments recognise the vital work done by really important groups of people in looking after vulnerable children in poverty. The work often requires significant personal commitment, and it is absolutely right that there is recognition in the Bill of what these people do. That is particularly important, as there is evidence that the results for children who are looked after by carers who are family and friends are often superior to those placed in other categories.
	There are questions about local authorities' policies when it comes to placing children with friends and family carers, given that the evidence seems to suggest that that approach secures better outcomes. It is important that those people are recognised. The role of grandparents was raised earlier, and is particularly important in that regard. As I said, the amendments are very welcome for all those reasons.
	Finally, Lords amendment 19 gives the CPC the ability to appoint its own deputy chair. I think that this is a welcome change, as it gives the commission a degree of independence in regulating its affairs. It is therefore a useful addition to the Bill.

Steve Webb: Like both speakers so far in this debate, I welcome this group of amendments that their Lordships have put before us today. I am also pleased that the Government have accepted them and are not opposing them.
	Many of the points that I want to make have been made already, including the importance of consulting the children directly. I am grateful to the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for highlighting my amendment to that effect, which he was kind enough to support. However, I do wonder slightly why what was a bad idea in November is now a good one in March and April. It would be terribly churlish of me to complain when an idea that we supported is accepted by the Government, but it raises an issue in my mind about the point of the Committee stage.
	The Minister has accepted that these are fairly good ideas, but it is a little frustrating when ideas that are put forward in a moderate way and with a broad degree of consensus are rejected almost for the sake of it. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that in the next term of government that he serves, and that he will perhaps be a bit more responsive to future amendments.
	I welcome the recognition of the role of grandparents and other carers, and Grandparents Plus and other organisations have done a great job in raising our awareness of these issues. I know that they will look forward to ongoing discussion with the Government and local authorities about how the amendments are implemented in future.
	I reflected on why the Conservatives were so enthusiastic about the 2010 target and the associated report. I assumed that they hope that some putative future Conservative Administration will be able to use the report as something to beat what they hope will then be the Opposition with. The Conservatives are unlikely to be doing so well on child poverty themselves by that point, so they will at least want to be able to say that the other lot were worse-

Andrew Selous: That is churlish.

Steve Webb: The hon. Gentleman says that that is churlish, but it would be nice to think that the 2010 report will not be entirely backward looking. However, I fear that that 2010 target will be missed. Although it would be nice to think that there will be announcements on Wednesday to put us back on track, I fear that there will not be and that it may be too late for that.
	The report must not say merely that the target was missed because not enough money was spent, or whatever. It must give us lessons to learn over the following decade, so that we can get back on track. I hope that whoever is in government after the election will not see the report simply as an opportunity to score points about the record of the previous Administration. The interim target looks likely to have been missed, and the next Government must see the report as something from which we can learn, so that future targets are not missed.
	I very much welcome the wide range of issues touched on in the amendments, especially the direct consultation with children and not just their representatives, and the involvement of wider care networks. Therefore, I shall encourage my colleagues to support the amendments.

John Howell: It was a great pleasure to serve on the Bill Committee, and it would be a little churlish to attack the amendments before us today, or to point out the negative elements of some of them. They are very welcome, but I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), to the effect that it needs the other place to introduce the same amendments that we tabled in Committee to get them through. That goes to the heart of the purpose of the Committee stage in this place.
	This is a better Bill as a result of the changes that have been made, and I want to pick up on a couple of points to do with the first four amendments in this group. I am very pleased that the 2010 target has been included in the Bill, and it is worth reflecting on a couple of points that my noble Friend Lord Freud made in the other place. He pointed out that the 2004 turndown was still not fully explicable, and said that there was therefore a need for the report to put the various economic factors involved into context. He was of the opinion that that would inevitably highlight the differences between those that occurred, positively or negatively, simply because of income transfers and those that occurred because issues that were at the root of tackling child poverty had been dealt with. I hope that that report will do justice to distinguishing between them. Without that, it will not be possible to learn the lessons that ought to be learned from the report. It is a shame that the Government continually confused the need for that report with the report set out in clause 8. They are very different, and I am glad that that has been recognised.
	In amendment 2, I welcome the addition of improving parenting skills and promoting parental support. However, that leaves the Bill slightly unbalanced. We wanted to include a number of other factors that would indicate the causes of poverty that need to be tackled. I am glad that parental support and skills have been added, but that does not take away from the need to look at other factors. It would have been more useful to adopt the broader approach for which my hon. Friends and I argued in Committee.
	Like others, I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) for pursuing the important issue of mental health. In the other place Baroness Butler-Sloss summed it up well by saying:
	"The mental health of children, especially children in socio-economically disadvantaged households . . . requires careful attention."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 9 March 2010; Vol. 718, c. 200.]
	There are two disadvantages there, neither of which is necessarily immediately recognisable, and they may take some effort to identify.
	Finally, with the focus of amendment 4 on those at most risk, it would be useful to hear from the Minister how those groups that are considered to be most at risk are to be decided. I appreciate that at this stage there may not be detailed plans for taking that forward, but we need an indication of how the most vulnerable are to be assessed.
	All in all, I welcome the amendments. There is a sense of déjà vu about many of them, but they are no worse for that, as they came from a good stable, if I may mix my metaphors horribly. I am pleased that the emphasis has been put back on tackling the causes of poverty, rather than looking simply at income.

William Cash: I shall follow what my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) said about causes, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) on insisting upon mental health being included in the provisions. Although I support the Bill and its objectives and do not doubt that it was discussed with enormous diligence in Committee, it seems to me as one entering the discussion at this stage that there is a problem in imposing duties to produce consequences that are driven by socio-economic statistical arguments.
	For example, the Secretary of State is required to consider the needs of the most vulnerable groups of children when preparing a UK strategy. Under amendment 4, the Secretary of State
	"must consider which groups of children in the United Kingdom appear to be disproportionately affected by socio-economic disadvantage".
	I get slightly worried when I hear such language. It attempts to achieve a worthy objective, which we would all strongly support, but it could produce an enormous amount of time-consuming additional form filling, regulations and analysis.
	The heart of the child poverty issue is not necessarily, though it could be, a lack of money or any of the criteria set out in the Bill. There is also the problem of children being exposed, for example, to social networking facilities- [ Interruption. ] I can see some discussion going on, which is a little distracting. It is important to make sure that children are brought up in an environment in which they can tell the difference between right and wrong. That is a spiritual and moral objective, which is not included in the Bill.

John Mason: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that he is rather over-stressing the point? To most people, the words "poverty" and "lack of income" are closely linked. That is the main issue, although there may be other issues as well.

William Cash: I do not disagree with that at all. I am merely saying that in the Bill there seems to be a lack of awareness of the moral dimension, which I believe is necessary. Furthermore, the language of the Bill is largely based on statistics and socio-economic analysis, rather than on the kind of objectives from which we all assume that children and young people in poverty would benefit as a result of being brought up properly. It is quite simple.

Stephen Timms: With the leave of the House, I welcome the support for the amendments that has been expressed across the House. Let me respond to some of the points that have been raised.
	The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), who made a valuable contribution in Committee, asked how we would define the groups referred to in amendment 4. It is envisaged that those groups would be identified through careful analysis of the data on households below average income. On that basis, an assessment would be made about which groups should be examined most closely.
	The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made fair points about what might appear to be a Government concession on the report about the 2010 target. The amendment that we considered in Committee required that a report on the 2010 target be produced within three months of Royal Assent. That would not be possible because the data would not be available till some time after that. The amendment before us is different and it works. Nevertheless, I would not wish-to pick up one of the words frequently used so far in the debate-to be churlish about the change that has been made.
	May I say to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) that there is a variety of forms of disadvantage? That is right, and one could talk about many different kinds of disadvantage that children can suffer. The Bill, however, is about child poverty, and poverty is about a lack of money. I remember times when Conservative Members would have been reluctant to talk about poverty in those terms. I welcome the progress that has been made, and the fact that across the House we are able to talk seriously about poverty and recognise that lack of money is a problem. That is what the Bill is about, and it is right that we should legislate for that in this way. I am grateful to all those who spoke.

Graham Stuart: I welcome the change of heart on mental health. Will the Minister share with the House the rationale for the Government's change of position on that?

Stephen Timms: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the move that he made in Committee, which we did, indeed, resist. There was a good debate on the topic in the other place and, for reasons that I entirely support, my noble Friend Lord McKenzie of Luton was persuaded that it would be right to make that factor explicit in the Bill. This was one instance in which the hon. Gentleman did not overstate his case, and I am glad that we have been able to accept it.
	 Lords amendment 1 agreed to.
	 Lords amendments  2 to 12 agreed to.

Helen Goodman: I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 13.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 16 to 18.

Helen Goodman: Lords amendments 13 and 16 to 18 would make the legislative changes necessary to implement the announcement that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made in his December pre-Budget report to extend eligibility for free school meals to primary school pupils in England in working families with an income of up to £16,190 from September 2010. The extension will be phased in for up to 50 per cent. of pupils from September, with the remaining 50 per cent. of entitled pupils receiving free school meals in September 2011. Extending free school meal entitlement in that way would assist in the reduction of child poverty by supporting low-income families and improving incentives to work. Once fully implemented, it would benefit about 600,000 children and lift more than 50,000 children out of poverty.

Steve Webb: Will the Minister clarify the roll-out process? Will half of local authorities be covered? If not, which 50 per cent. of children will come first? I had not realised that the process would be undertaken in two stages, so will she clarify the phasing?

Helen Goodman: If I could return to that point in a moment, I should be able to give the hon. Gentleman a fuller response.
	Hon. Members will have noticed that the proposed new clause is headed "Free school lunches and milk", and they may like to know that this year is the 39th anniversary of Mrs. Thatcher snatching the milk, so I feel particularly privileged to be here tonight moving an amendment that would put that strategy into reverse.
	The hon. Gentleman asked why we are rolling out the process only to 50 per cent. of primary pupils in September. The reason is that some schools may need to increase their kitchen and catering capacity, and it also reflects the funding that is available: £85 million has been made available to support the roll-out from September, and further resources will be available from 2011. I accept that I have not fully responded to the hon. Gentleman, and I shall endeavour to return to that point.

Bob Spink: I support the Bill, even though I do not support what the Minister said about Mrs. Thatcher. Does the Minister agree, however, that it is even more important to provide milk and nourishment to children in nursery education? It is probably more important than providing milk to children in primary education, and it would be easy to do. Will she consider that idea at some stage?

Helen Goodman: The hon. Gentleman is right: the earlier we start on such programmes, the better. That is why, for example, we have introduced the health in pregnancy grant, and why milk vouchers are still available for very low-income families. However, I am anxious not to stray beyond the terms of the amendment. The proposals and the PBR announcement were welcomed in the other place, and I urge the House to agree to these Lords amendments.

Andrew Selous: We welcome this group of amendments in relation to free school lunches-and milk, as the Minister has quite rightly pointed out.
	The Minister might consider my first question rather underhand and technical, but I ask it at the start of my remarks just to give her time to find inspiration for the answer. What is the position for children in middle school years 5 and 6 in relation to the proposed provisions? I am not just being technical or awkward, because the whole of Bedfordshire has the middle school system, so it is a relevant question for the county and the area that I represent, as indeed it is for children in the three-tier system, where it exists, throughout the country. I ask that question at the beginning of my remarks to give the Minister time to find an answer to it.
	I am grateful to the Minister for her comments in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) about funding, but will she confirm that the funding for those free school lunches and milk would come entirely from local government? I spent some time in the Library earlier today trying to get to the bottom of exactly how the proposal would be funded, because in years gone there has been a tendency for central Government to place requests on local authorities, and a cheque has not always been attached to the second page of the letter. I am not saying that that has happened in this case, but I would be grateful if the Minister were to elaborate on that point.
	It is worth putting on the record our recognition of the work of Rev. Paul Nicolson, who gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee on diet and nutrition as regards families in poverty. As Ministers will agree, he has been extremely persistent on that issue, and to good effect, too, so I am very pleased to pay tribute to him.
	Has any thought been given to a possible perverse incentive of the measure, welcomed and supported as it is by the Opposition? It relates to the withdrawal of passported benefits when the incomes of parents increase. To illustrate my point, I think in particular of the single mother who came to my surgery a month or so ago, telling me that she was in work but on a fairly low income. I think that she earned about £900 a month, a very low income by any standards. When I discussed the ways in which she could try to earn a bit more, she expressed a very clear reluctance to do so, because she was worried about the withdrawal of her passported benefits.
	On the basis of my constituent's own research and experience of being paid a bit more at previous times in her life, she had clearly identified, and frankly felt, that she would be worse off, so she was happier to stay on a lower income and have the free dental care and other passported benefits, of which free school meals would be a part. Although the measure is welcome, it touches on withdrawal rates in respect of such matters, so I should be grateful to know whether Ministers have given any thought to that. I repeat, however, that the Opposition welcome the measure.

Graham Stuart: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most exciting prospects for an incoming Conservative Government is to tackle the position of so many people who are stuck in poverty? They might be at a higher level than they were when this Government came to power, but none the less the poverty traps remain, and we need fundamental reform, looking very much at the way in which benefit and tax work together to disincentivise people who want to get on and improve their lives and that of their families.

Andrew Selous: As ever, my hon. Friend gets to the heart of the issue, and he makes a very important point. An urgent task for whoever forms the next Government will be to ensure that the benefits system incentivises work smoothly at every level of low income-in a way that it does not at the moment. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue, and he has been absolutely right on so many issues throughout our consideration of the Bill.

Steve Webb: Hitherto we have debated the Schleswig-Holstein question, and tonight we have the Bedfordshire question. I hope, in anticipation of a note from the Official Reporters, that they know how to spell the former, because I certainly do not. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) rightly asked how middle school pupils will fare. I assume that the cut-off point will be as per that for primary school pupils, but we will wait to see what the answer is.
	The intervention by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) was interesting because, in a sense, this is about a contrast between our saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if this happened?", and his being about to support, I assume, with the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, something that makes the problem that he describes worse. That is the paradox, is it not? We all want to do more for low-waged working families, but the distinction that I would make is that between what is known in the jargon as the unemployment trap and the poverty trap. The unemployment trap says, "Is it worth working at all?" and the poverty trap says, "Once you're working, is it worth working harder?" We are improving the unemployment trap by saying "If you take a low-paid job you keep your free school meals, which you didn't get previously, so we are helping with that," but then we say, "Having got into a low-paid job we haven't incentivised you to do overtime, or to train up, or whatever." Even under a Conservative Government, those trade-offs would exist.

Stephen Timms: Does the hon. Gentleman recall, as I do, that the number of people facing a 70 per cent. withdrawal rate was a great deal higher under the Conservative Government than it is at the moment?

Steve Webb: I well recall the statistics during the 1980s, when there were rather more people who simply did not find it worth their while to work at all. A lot more has been done as regards in-work support. The unemployment trap is a lot less severe than it used to be, but the in-work poverty trap is more severe, because more help is being given to low-paid families. We are at a different point in the trade-off. The support for free school meals is therefore welcome.
	I have a question about take-up. The Minister used a figure of £16,100, which I assume is the cut-off point for working tax credit, or whatever, because there is no figure in the amendments, just a concept. Of course, punters will not have the faintest idea that at £16,000 they get this thing and at £17,000 they do not; and the number will presumably change every year if the thresholds are indexed, and so on. People will say, "How do I, as a low-waged family member on working tax credit, get to know about this? If I've been in the system for a long time, I'll probably find out, but if I move from unemployment into low-paid work and come into the working tax credit system, how do I know that my child can get free school meals under the provisions of these amendments?" With a lot of these benefits, the theory is great but the reality is that many people do not claim them. I hope that the Minister can give a flavour of the strategy that will be in place to ensure that these entirely welcome rights are actually taken up by those who will benefit from them.

Helen Goodman: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would like to respond to the points that have been made.
	The hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) asked how we were phasing in these measures, and the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) asked about the position of children in middle schools. The answer is the same to both of them. Let me explain how the amendment works. We have to make this change to primary legislation, because although it is currently possible to vary entitlement, it is not possible to do so according to the age of the child, so the amendment enables us to vary it in that way. We will introduce this for children in key stage 1 in September 2010 and for those in key stages 1 and 2 in September 2011. I hope that that satisfies both hon. Gentlemen.
	The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire asked whether the money is coming from local authorities. It is new money that was announced by the Chancellor before Christmas, and the funding goes via the schools budget. I agree with what he said about Rev. Paul Nicolson, who has indeed been assiduous. He was assiduous in lobbying me before I was a member of the Government, and he is still assiduous in telling me his views, day by day, instant by instant, on the development of policy as we go forward.
	What we are doing significantly improves incentives for parents. It was precisely because of constituency cases that we were experiencing, with parents coming to us and saying that they were not clear about whether they would be better off by moving into work given the loss of passported benefits when they moved from income support or income-related jobseeker's allowance, that we wanted to extend the entitlement to free school meals to parents on working tax credits. This involves quite a significant sum of money. I do not know about other hon. Members, but I find that I am giving my children £3 a day for school meals. For someone with two children, that amounts to £30 a week. These are quite chunky sums coming out of people's budgets.

Andrew Selous: I take the Minister's point-she is right that these are significant amounts of money. To use the helpful distinction made by the hon. Member for Northavon, my question was not about the employment trap but the poverty trap. Has any research been done about that within the Department or elsewhere?

Helen Goodman: The calculations that officials have done using the models that we have suggests, as I think that I have said, that this measure will reduce the number of children in child poverty by more than 50,000, so the possibility that the hon. Gentleman raises would not be the case.
	The hon. Member for Northavon asked whether we had any measures in the pipeline to encourage take-up, because obviously these things are only worth while if people avail themselves of them. The Department for Children, Schools and Families has been working with other Government Departments to develop a free school meals eligibility checking system known as "the Hub", which enables local authorities simultaneously to check data from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to ascertain whether a parent qualifies for free school meals. That system has significantly reduced bureaucracy. It is currently being extended to all parents to allow them to check their own eligibility and to apply online for free school meals. However, I will take away the hon. Gentleman's point to see whether there is anything further that we can do in that respect.
	With those few brief remarks, I ask the House to agree to the amendment.
	 Lords amendment  13  agreed to.
	 Lords amendments 14 to 21 agreed to.

Business without Debate
	 — 
	Delegated Legislation

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Social Security

That the draft Child Benefit Up-rating Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 February, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Social Security

That the draft Guardian's Allowance Up-rating (Northern Ireland) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 February, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Social Security

That the draft Guardian's Allowance Up-rating Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 10 February, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Tax Credits

That the draft Tax Credits Up-rating Regulations 2010, which were laid before this House on 10 February, be approved. -(Mr. Blizzard.)
	 Question agreed to.

Financial Assistance to Industry

Ordered,
	That the Motion in the name of Mr Pat McFadden relating to Financial Assistance to Industry shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice has been given that the instrument be approved . -(Mr. Blizzard.)

WI-FI (SWINDON)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. -(Mr. Blizzard.)

Anne Snelgrove: I am pleased to be able to bring this debate to the House, as it covers serious questions about Swindon borough council and its wi-fi scheme. In November 2009, the council announced an initiative with two newly formed Swindon-based businesses, Digital City (UK) and a London-based and Isle of Man-registered company, aQovia. It was an ambitious project that would deliver a limited free internet link to all who signed up, alongside three paid packages aimed at businesses, homes and roving users. A third company, Avidity Consulting, is also involved in the initiative.
	I want to ensure that it is understood that the issue under debate today is not wi-fi itself but probity. The debate is about the behaviour of ruling Conservative councillors and, as a consequence of that, the behaviour of officers. It is also about accountability to the public and the lack of effective scrutiny procedures at Swindon borough council.
	I am grateful to my constituents, and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), who have spent many hours investigating Digital City and its connections with the council. They have provided a good deal of the factual information that I will be putting forward today. I thank Geoff Reid and members of the Talkswindon website, particularly the blogger known as Komadori, and Chris Watts, a local businessman whose involvement came about through his anger at the restrictive practices adopted by the council.
	I wish to state clearly at the outset that I support universal internet access, innovation and local councils working with local businesses. However, neither I nor the Government support excessive secrecy, and I believe that Swindon borough council should have been open, transparent and prepared to engage with everyone on these issues. Sadly it has been exactly the opposite.
	As the Prime Minister said this morning:
	"Super-fast broadband is the electricity of the digital age....it must be for all-not just for some...We have already decided to commit public funding to ensure existing broadband reaches nearly every household in Britain by 2012".
	In his speech, he gave details of how Labour will ensure that super-fast broadband reaches every home in the UK, creating thousands of new jobs in the process. Labour's plans will see universal access to broadband by 2012, with 90 per cent. of UK households having access to next-generation broadband by 2017.
	Labour's support, and mine, for universal access to high-speed broadband, rather than a two-speed scheme as envisaged by Digital City, should not be doubted. Although that is the major issue, my constituents raise many other issues about the wi-fi project that damage that aspiration in their eyes, such as whether the best technology has been employed, the effect of the council's secretive deal with a newly established company on other, well established small and medium-sized enterprises in Swindon, and the health implications of a wireless network.
	Swindon borough council has provided a loan of £450,000 on commercial terms to Digital City to enable it to create the wi-fi network across Swindon. In return for that loan, the council has received a 40 per cent. equity stake in the company. If the loan is repaid within two years, Avidity Consulting has an option to purchase 5 per cent. of the company's shares from the council for £1. Avidity already has a 25 per cent. stake in the company. The other shareholder is aQovia, which holds the remaining 35 per cent. of the company. Digital City intends to install wireless internet across the entire borough of Swindon. Both Digital City and Avidity Consulting were incorporated on 14 August 2009 as off-the-shelf companies. They became active on 21 and 22 September respectively and thus have a negligible track record. On 13 March 2009, aQovia was incorporated and it appears to have become active on 16 September, and thus it also has a limited track record.
	According to a timeline produced for me on 19 March 2010 by the chief executive of the council, for which I am grateful, discussions commenced at officer level at the council on 19 January 2009 involving the instigator of the initiative, Rikki Hunt, and members of aQovia. According to the timeline:
	"On 25th June 2009 Rikki Hunt presented an outline proposal to the Leader and various members of the Cabinet; this consisted of the business idea, the level of investment that was being sought and the potential level of return if the Council chose to invest. Subsequently, officers were asked to do some more detailed work in order for a funding proposition to be considered.
	3rd - 10th July 2009 a financial plan and written outline business case was received from Rikki Hunt."
	Following that, a decision was taken by Rod Bluh, the Conservative leader of the council, to deal with the proposal using a lead member briefing note. Crucially, that confined the formal consultation and decision making to two councillors only-the leader, Councillor Bluh, and the lead member for finance and benefits, Councillor Mark Edwards. Both those councillors subsequently signed a cabinet member briefing note in mid-October, following which officers were able to exercise substantial delegated powers. That meant that the proposals did not have to be discussed in committee at an early stage or voted on by a larger group of councillors.
	The immediate consequence was that the councillors could ensure that officers were able to use council powers to the advantage of Digital City and the wi-fi project. For example, an earlier resolution made at full council specifically for rapid action to be taken on town centre regeneration was used to enable the loan of £450,000 to be made, which meant that the loan did not have to go through the normal council processes. The requirement for a credit rating of the companies concerned under treasury management rules was set aside, presumably because the companies were less than a year old and had no substantive credit history. Given the lack of a corporate track record, the decision by Swindon borough council was made
	"primarily on the track record of the key individuals concerned and on the basis that risks and rewards would be fairly apportioned",
	according to the minutes of the council scrutiny meeting on 14 December.
	In a letter to me dated 4 March 2010, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination detailed the background of EU procurement directives that set out the legal framework, detailed procedures and criteria for the specification, selection and awarding of contracts above certain thresholds. She stated that
	"even below these thresholds, the EU treaty-based principles of nondiscrimination, equal treatment, transparency, mutual recognition and proportionality apply."
	She went on to comment that
	"in most cases there should be a competitive procurement advertised".
	Swindon borough council asserts that because the £450,000 was a loan, it is not subject to the normal procurement rules, despite its own shareholdings in Digital City and place on its board. However, the council is using EU competition rules to prevent our local dial-a-ride from competing for council contracts to carry the disabled, and other councils, including Norfolk county council, have published a tendering process for their wi-fi networks.
	The cosiness of the relationships of those involved, and the lack of external scrutiny while they were being set up, should alarm all who are interested in local government probity. At the very least, it calls into question the judgment of those concerned, who should have been well aware that they would be called to account, and that they therefore needed to put extra safeguards in place to protect themselves from suspicion as their roles cross over so many times. At worst, it obfuscates actions which gamble public money in untried companies with inexperienced and naive directors, who had no sustainable business plan and were unprepared to answer serious and searching legitimate questions from other elected members as well as local people.
	I shall quote at length from the important timeline that the chief executive of Swindon borough council provided for me-I remind the Minister that the document from which it is taken is dated 19 March 2010. It states, under "conflict of interest":
	"It came to light that an officer involved with this project had been registered as a Director of Digital City (UK) Limited since September 2009. He was unaware of this. He had pre-signed but not dated a registration document during the preparatory phase of this project and this was highlighted to colleagues at the time. The signed form was held by Digital City (UK) Limited, on the understanding that this was a contingency measure to be invoked if required and if agreed by the Council. The registration was sent off in error by Digital City (UK) Limited and they have apologised to the officer for this. The officer asked to resign from the Board of the company as soon as this came to light and this was effected on the 11th March 2010. He is no longer a Director of Digital City (UK) Limited. At no time did the officer receive any communication from Digital City (UK) Limited stating that he was a Director of the company nor did he receive any remuneration or any other consideration from Digital City (UK) Limited. There have been no Board Meetings of Digital City (UK) limited. This officer has, however, participated, with other Swindon Borough Council colleagues, in regular project and progress meetings."
	I have quoted that at length because it contradicts two other sources of information sent directly to me. The first is a letter to me dated 28 January 2010, again from the chief executive. In response to my question in a letter about the council's involvement in the day-to-day running of Digital City, it states:
	"This is an arm's length arrangement; we hold shares in Digital City and there is governance in place that allows us to protect the Council's interests; we have a Director on the Board".
	That contradicts the 19 March briefing note to me, which implies no knowledge of the officer's appointment to Digital City's board on 26 September 2009. Despite the chief executive's reassurances, the officer concerned was one of the authors of the briefing note to Councillors Bluh and Edwards written two weeks after he had become a director on 12 October 2010. The briefing note recommended providing the loan of £450,000 to Digital City and I am sorry to say that his directorship was not disclosed.
	The second source of information is a letter from Rikki Hunt dated 2 March 2010. In response to my question about who sits on the board of Digital City, he replied:
	"As well as myself, the two other board members are Hitesh Patel, a Director of Swindon Borough Council and Mustafa Arif, a Director of aQovia",
	although there is no record at Companies House of Mr. Arif being a director. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that officers and councillors referred to the officer's appointment to Digital City's board on several occasions. In addition, the officer himself was clearly aware that he was a director of Digital City, as he apparently self-publicised the fact for five months via his LinkedIn profile. I can conclude only that when it was advantageous for the council to have an officer on the board of Digital City, it publicly claimed that that was so, but as soon as the matter became too hot to handle, it found a way of disposing of the board membership.
	Several questions arise about the robustness of Swindon borough council's contract with Digital City.

Bob Spink: The hon. Lady is a caring and assiduous constituency Member of Parliament, who works hard for her people in Swindon. Does she feel that the cabinet system that she describes allows a small number of councillors to become cosy and close to senior officers in a council, and that that enables such circumstances to develop, when a more traditional cabinet system would give more councillors more information and prevent such things from happening?

Anne Snelgrove: I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns. The problem has been the process. I think that sufficient safeguards exist, but the cabinet member brief brought about all the secrecy. That is my concern-it is a very unusual process. The hon. Gentleman gives me an opportunity to say that I have a high regard for the officers and particularly the chief executive of Swindon borough council. I believe that the ruling Conservative group has placed pressure on those officers. Even if all seats are won by opposition parties at the local elections in May, that group will still be in power in Swindon. That is a difficult situation for officers to combat.
	As I was saying, a number of questions arise about the robustness of Swindon borough council's contract with Digital City. Does it reflect the council taking on what appears to be 100 per cent. of the risk? That question is relevant if wi-fi does not succeed in attracting sufficient customers in a crowded market, because £450,000 of taxpayers' money will be lost. If wi-fi succeeds, will the contract bring the council sufficient rewards, or does the larger proportion go to the individuals behind the recently set up companies Digital City and aQovia? That should be subject to the council's scrutiny process, but it is impossible for me, my constituents or councillors of any party not involved in that enterprise, including the ruling Tory party, to find out, because the council determines that such questions are for Digital City-not the council-to answer. Digital City has provided basic information, but it cannot be tested through the normal democratic process, thus disfranchising councillors, MPs and their constituents.
	No opposition councillor has had sight of the contract or the business plan, but at the beginning of this month the company had sold only five packages, rather than the 100 private-use packages and 25 business packages in the original loan conditions, and it had not managed to attract any private sector investment. It is clear from the cabinet briefing paper of 10 March 2010 that there had to be a significant downgrading of the original progress measures to allow the council to agree to the release of the second phase of the loan-£150,000.
	Although that was agreed by the cabinet, in an unprecedented move last week's scrutiny committee meeting at the council referred the decision back to the next cabinet meeting on 31 March. I sincerely hope that the cabinet does the right thing and delays any further allocation of taxpayers' money until a full cross-party investigation can be carried out into the actions of councillors and officers-I mean an internal investigation, with councillors from the Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats, and independents, who I am sure would be welcome. The robustness of the business plan and the loan agreement terms also need investigating, as does the lack of a tendering process, which gave an advantage to one company over others.
	The technology used by Digital City is a wireless network with signals sent from boxes attached to council-owned lamp posts throughout Swindon. For that, Digital City needs planning permission and an electricity supply for the planned total of 1,400 boxes, which one of my constituents estimates will cost approximately £35,000 per annum. It is not clear whether Digital City or Swindon borough council will bear the cost. That is old technology, and whether it will produce the speeds quoted by Digital City remains to be seen, but there is scepticism that it will consistently provide speeds of 20 megabytes, which are crucial for wide take-up. Those who sign up for free wi-fi will not have access to the fastest speeds, creating the kind of two-tier network that was criticised by the Prime Minister in his speech today.
	Digital City relies on Swindon borough council's connections, which I understand must be upgraded to take that into account at a cost of approximately £45,000. Although there is nothing wrong-in fact, it is good-with councils increasing their internet capacity, the issue is one of openness and transparency, because of the cost to taxpayers and the potential commercial gain by Digital City, which is not required to provide expensive infrastructure.
	There are many opportunities for IT companies to provide digital access for Swindon homes, and we already have one of the highest take-ups in the country. It is a very crowded marketplace, with some of the largest companies in the country competing with small local businesses: our newest housing estate, Wichelstowe, provides fibre optic connections to all homes for both television and internet access; the Toothill estate in west Swindon is one of BT's pilot areas for comprehensive and very fast fibre optic connection; and an international company with headquarters in Swindon is upgrading its internet signal and considering making free wi-fi available after office hours within a 20-mile radius of its building. I welcome those initiatives, because they promote social inclusion and ensure a marketplace for my constituents that will keep prices competitive and offer a wide choice.
	However, the entry into the marketplace of a council-backed company-effectively, it is publicly subsidised-will have a detrimental effect on small and medium-sized IT companies in Swindon. Several local companies have raised considerable concerns with me, particularly about the lack of opportunity to tender for the business and the loan given to Digital City during the worst recession for many years, when most SMEs were finding it impossible to get loans at a decent rate of interest, especially brand-new companies without a track record. Had Digital City gone instead to a high street bank for a £450,000 loan on the evidence of its business plan and ropey marketing strategy, I imagine it would have been laughed off the premises. The rate of interest on the loan has not been disclosed. As I said, it has been described as a loan on commercial terms.
	In addition to the loan, Digital City has been given council premises for its headquarters at no cost to the business, and free access to council officers' time and advice. Councillors and officers claim that the council premises have no value and Digital City would enhance the offices, but that is at odds with the cabinet member briefing note of 12 October 2009, which states:
	"The space will be made fit for office occupation and this cost will be met through the existing corporate repair and maintenance budget."
	This is a massive subsidy, as all small businesses will know that start-up office costs are a big initial outlay for new ventures. In addition, the briefing note acknowledges that Digital City will need to install wireless boxes on council-owned lamp posts and states, in advance of any discussion at planning committee:
	"The Council will also grant Digital City licences to install equipment at a number of its facilities across the Borough. Discussions are continuing around the possible need for Planning permissions to be granted."
	Again, any business that has had dealings with council planning departments will know what a massive commercial advantage the automatic granting of licences gives, alongside officer help through the planning process if needed.
	Swindon borough council, unlike Essex county council, does not have a small loans scheme for local businesses, so there are no opportunities for other SMEs in Swindon to take advantage of a council loan in the way that Digital City has. While Swindon borough council states that the loan is at "commercial rates", there is no evidence of what these rates are and how they compare to what was being offered to similar SMEs last year, when interest rates averaging 15 per cent. and secured against their own homes were being quoted to my constituents. Was this a condition the council set for the directors of Digital City? I very much doubt it.
	There is no question but that all this provides Digital City with an unfair advantage in a crowded market. To state in a response to my constituent Chris Watts, a local businessman, that
	"the council hasn't spent any cash on this, only officer time",
	is to be economical with the truth and insulting to small businesses in Swindon. Until this venture was announced in November last year, Swindon borough council's interest in providing free internet access across the borough was not apparent from its published strategies and appeared, at most, a long-term aspiration. Other providers of this service have thus been excluded from bidding to offer a similar service.
	A number of constituents have raised their concerns about the protection of communities from radiation hazards, including those associated with wi-fi communications systems. I am assured by the Department of Health that there is to date no consistent evidence that exposure to radio waves adversely affects the health of the general population, although the Independent Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation is currently reviewing radio frequency exposures, including those from wireless networks. The Health Protection Agency considers it sensible to adopt a precautionary approach to the use of any new technology.
	Had the borough council been better prepared, it could have prepared information in advance for residents. In fact, the lack of information available for residents on any issue relating to wi-fi is quite breathtaking. A question asked by an opposition councillor about the provision for a family to object to a transmitter being located level with and 6 feet away from their child's bedroom window has not been answered by the council. Because of the secrecy surrounding the project, a mature debate on this subject has been impossible and it was left to me to provide information to residents.
	I deal now with the relationship between Swindon borough council officers, councillors from the leading Conservative group and the directors or owners of Digital City, aQoviaand Avidity Consulting. Underlying concerns about the lack of competition is the possibility that the individual behind this venture, Rikki Hunt, may have had access to privileged information that gave him an unfair advantage when putting his proposition to the council. Mr. Hunt is the chair of Swindon Strategic Economic Partnership. Until the end of 2009, he was also a non-executive director of Swindon Commercial Services Ltd, which is Swindon borough council's direct services company and the main contractor to Digital City for installation and maintenance of its wireless network. That would have given him access to senior councillors and council officers and, potentially, access to commercially valuable information not available to competitors.
	It has been too easy for those concerned to hide behind various companies and to deny the public access to the full facts, yet the public are paying for those companies' activities and the directors are, as far as I can ascertain, accepting no liability. By virtue of his close association with Swindon borough council, Mr. Hunt may have been in receipt of privileged information in relation to the council's plans for widening access to the internet, as well as those of the economic partnership. As a consequence, it is possible that a conflict of interest could arise in his company's approach to the council, as covered by section 175 of the Companies Act 2006, under which a director has a duty to ensure that they avoid a situation where they have, or can have, a direct or indirect interest that conflicts, or may conflict, with the interests of the company. The information made available to the public by Swindon borough council provides insufficient evidence that no such conflict has arisen or that the council made efforts to assure itself that such a conflict had not arisen.
	There has been considerable interest in the scheme from councils across the country-and, indeed, some councils from abroad-which is why we should look carefully at the business plan and the public service model offered. As I have said, rolling out internet access to the whole population is a good idea. The Government have stated so on numerous occasions and in various publications, and today the Prime Minister took that support further, giving Martha Lane Fox a role in co-ordinating the Government's digital activities. It is right that councils should be involved, but plenty of other good ideas have gone bad when people seek a commercial advantage through councils. We know what happened in the past when over-close relationships developed between councillors, council officers and property developers.
	It has been suggested by Conservative councillors, including the leader of the council, that anybody who asks questions or raises concerns-or, indeed, anybody who even reports these in the local press-is working against an excellent initiative and against the interests of our town. That attitude worries me considerably. Asking pertinent questions is a legitimate activity in a healthy democracy. Probing questions should be welcomed, not pushed to one side or deflected by smokescreens. The job of elected members is to explain and promote their policies. They should not be secretive or defensive about that, nor should they abuse their position with officers. What has happened is a failure of the political process, and whatever errors of judgment have been made, officers must not be made convenient scapegoats. The scheme arose from discussions among councillors.
	It is an irony that the internet has provided access to much of the information that I have detailed in this debate. Talkswindon members have sifted through council documents and company documents that are available online, and although it still took dedication and time to find the relevant information, that was a matter of days and weeks, rather than the months and years that it used to take.
	Although I do not believe that there has been corruption on the part of officers, the process put in place at the behest of Conservative leaders of the council lays open the possibility of future corruption. I repeat my plea to the cabinet to delay any further allocation of taxpayers' money until a full cross-party investigation can be carried out into the actions of councillors and officers. The hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) is quoted on Digital City's website as saying:
	"We want to see a flowering of this all over the country".
	My message to her is that she and her party's councillors need to have much more probity before they rush headlong into schemes that have the potential to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money, disadvantage small businesses and threaten the reputations of local councils.
	There are still serious questions to be answered. Did this sorry mess come about because leading Conservatives wanted to keep the initiative secret, not just from opposition councillors, but from members of their own group, in case it was scuppered at an early stage owing to the flimsy business plan, or because they were scared that credit could be claimed by others? Although the blame lies squarely at the door of leading Conservative councillors who insisted on secrecy, were council officers unable or unwilling to challenge the Conservative group, which will still be in power on 6 May? Did officers insist on one of their own number sitting on the Digital City board because they were concerned about the closeness of Mr. Hunt to councillors and the council processes, and did they recently realise that this decision would instead compromise them and therefore decide to run a mile from it? What safeguards are now in place to protect taxpayers' money and ensure a level playing field for the small businesses in Swindon? I hope and trust that my hon. Friend the Minister will help me get some serious responses to those pertinent questions.

Barbara Follett: It is a pleasure to respond to this debate, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove). I congratulate her on securing this opportunity to discuss her concerns about the way in which Swindon borough council introduced borough-wide wi-fi. As she knows, local authorities act independently of central Government, and Ministers such as I have no remit to intervene in their day-to-day affairs, except when specific provision has been made by Act of Parliament. However, local authorities are accountable to their electorate for their actions. If a member of the public suspects fraud, corruption, or misuse of public money, they should contact the appointed auditor for that authority. If a member of the public believes that the council has acted illegally or not in accordance with its constitution, they should contact the authority's monitoring officer. Despite the limitations on central Government intervention, measures are in place to secure local intervention.
	The fact that Swindon is working with the private sector to make the town the first in the UK to provide free wi-fi internet access for all its residents has been widely reported in the press. That is a good aim, and may have replaced Swindon's magic roundabout as an identifying feature of the town. The challenges of the current recession make it even more important that successful partnership works to make effective use of public money, and that available resources are deployed as efficiently and transparently as possible to pursue local priorities.
	The concerns expressed by my hon. Friend are primarily about the procurement process and the decision-making aspects of the project. They include the way in which the council handled the wi-fi zone roll-out in Swindon; the pilot scheme that was set up with Digital City UK, a company that started with a £450,000 loan from the borough council; the transparency of the decision-making process as only three councillors were involved in the agreement; the fact that a council employee is a member of the company's board; the fact that taxpayers' money seems to be at risk because the business risk does not seem to have been underwritten; and the lack of information on wi-fi, especially its effects on health, which are, hon. Members know, a cause of great concern.
	Finally, my hon. Friend said that wi-fi is not necessarily the best solution for delivering broadband to any community, let alone excluded ones. In a city area, it may be difficult for wi-fi to penetrate housing, especially if the walls are thick and were built in Victorian times. Wi-fi is unlikely to support next-generation access speeds, so it may be quickly superseded by cable and fibre-optics, and wi-fi speed suffers as more people use it-the contention ratio. All in all, there are many concerns about the way in which Swindon borough council went about the provision of that laudable item, and about the research it carried out.
	I shall now outline the Government's established policy on procurement to clarify the matter for my hon. Friend. Our policy is that public procurement should be based on value for money, having due regard to propriety and regularity. The European Union's procurement directives set out the legal framework, detailed procedures and criteria for the specification, selection and award of contracts above certain thresholds. Even below those thresholds, the EU treaty-based principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment, transparency, mutual recognition and proportionality must apply. The EU procurement directives and implementing regulations enforce EU rules on transparency, free movement of goods and non-discrimination. They require that, in most cases, there should be a competitive procurement advertised across Europe.
	Subject to their legal duties-including the duty of best value-and to public procurement law, local authorities are responsible for taking their own procurement decisions. The duty of best value, as laid down in legislation, requires authorities to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which they exercise their functions, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Any specific complaints that best value is not being met in a particular set of circumstances would need to be addressed in the first instance to the authority's external auditor. I stress again that Ministers have no ability to intervene in individual procurement decisions made by local authorities. Local authorities need to satisfy themselves that any aid provided by them does not contravene the European Commission's prohibition on the granting of state aid and that it meets the requirements of competition law.
	I shall turn now to the audit and inspection of local authorities. Systems are in place to assess and audit decisions made by local authorities. Auditors perform an annual audit of financial statements. However, they also have wider responsibilities to review and report on whether an audited body has made proper arrangements for securing value for money, economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources. The auditors are obliged by the code of audit practice, which is approved by Parliament, to consider whether any representation or information that they receive needs investigation or action under their specific powers. They must consider whether to make a public interest report under section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 on any matter that they judge should be considered by the audited body or brought to public attention. I am dwelling on these specific matters because some of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised could possibly be addressed through these means, if members of the public felt that they should be.
	Those external auditor assessments of value for money in the use of resources feed into the performance framework for local services for all outcomes secured by local authorities working alone or in partnership. Such a partnership is known as the comprehensive area assessment. The CAA use of resources assessment considers how well individual public bodies manage and use their resources to deliver value for money and better sustainable outcomes for local people. The assessment focuses on the importance of sound, strategic financial management, strategic commissioning, good governance and the effective management of natural resources, assets and people.
	My hon. Friend has raised several points about governance in the council, particularly in regard to the transparency of the process for decision making and to the fact that an employee of the council was and is a member of the company board. My understanding is that Swindon borough council operates a leader and cabinet model, made up of the leader of the council and a cabinet of up to nine councillors to whom the leader allocates portfolios. The cabinet makes decisions in line with the council's overall policies. If it wishes to make a decision that is outside the budget or policy framework, this must be referred to the council as a whole to decide. To speed up decision making and to allow the cabinet to concentrate on major matters, members have the delegated power to make day-to-day decisions in relation to areas within their portfolio. However, specific questions about an individual decision would have to be addressed to the council.
	One issue raised by my hon. Friend was how just three councillors can make a decision that affects the whole authority. Sadly, once again, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on an individual case. However, in terms of governance, there are times when it could be appropriate for decisions to be made without the participation of the full council. However, the council's particular decision-making process will be outlined in its constitution.
	A further issue was whether there is a conflict of interest when a council employee is a member of the board of a company-in this case, the wi-fi company. Again, it is not appropriate for me to comment on an individual case. However, it is reasonable to expect councils to have in place mechanisms to deal with conflicts of interest such as that one, because employees may live in the authority and use its services, so they may have to come to decisions on matters that have a material effect on them and their lives.

Anne Snelgrove: Does my hon. Friend mean that councils should have a policy on this-a published policy on issues, such as council employees being directors and conflicts of interest, to which members of the public could have access?

Barbara Follett: I think authorities should have in place robust mechanisms for dealing with conflicts of interest and for advising staff on how to behave when they arise. In an ideal world-I do not know whether this is a duty, but I can write to my hon. Friend about it-councils should have the rules made accessible to members of the public either in a printed form or on their websites.
	In summary, complaints about value-for-money decisions should be addressed to the authority's external auditor and concerns about the propriety of decisions and decision-making processes should be addressed to the local authority's monitoring officer.
	It is unfortunate that the circumstances of the setting up of this project have caused comment, since the Government strongly support increased access to internet services and are committed to ensuring that virtually everyone in this country, including those living in rural areas, has access to a good level of broadband. It is important not to lose sight of that in the specific concerns raised about the Swindon project. I am glad that my hon. Friend emphasised that the Prime Minister said today that broadband is the electricity of today. Indeed, it is; it will make a huge difference to our country's economy and the lives of the people who live here.
	As I have explained, central Government have no ability to intervene in the decisions that have been made by Swindon council or in respect of the manner in which those decisions were taken. These are matters that need pursuing locally and I hope my hon. Friend is able to secure answers to the questions she has posed.
	The Swindon project should present an exciting opportunity to boost the local economy and regenerate parts of the borough by giving people, especially those in disadvantaged communities, a chance to access and use technology and share the benefits that it can bring. However, the questions that my hon. Friend has posed about the project and the process that has been followed are very important. It is in the council's interest to provide satisfactory answers to those questions, and to make transparent the way in which decisions have been made. Then, and only then, will residents' concerns be laid to rest. I sincerely hope that Swindon council will provide those answers, and that the project can then proceed to bring the benefits that my hon. Friend and the Government wish it to bring.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.